


Space Mom, Shadow Daughter

by lenasmagic (dimensionhoppingrose)



Series: Finding Her Place 'verse [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Della is doing her best, Family Bonding, Other, PTSD, Trauma, canon divergent as of 2x14, hints of Weblena - Freeform, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2020-12-14 20:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21021878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimensionhoppingrose/pseuds/lenasmagic
Summary: *Side-Series to Finding Her Place*Della's a mom with no idea what she's doing. Lena is a kid who's never had a parent. Between that and their shared traumas, it's no surprise they might bond.





	1. Della vs. Technology

**Author's Note:**

> Della and Lena were starting to take over too much of the main story, so I decided to punt them over to their own story XD Same formula - one-shots, no chronological order, heavy focus on Della and Lena. They'll still be in the main series too, but this way Della doesn't totally take over lol.

_ Come to my room. Alone. Tell no one. —DD  _

Lena read the note several times, raising an eyebrow. She was  _ fairly _ certain it was Della — she had seen Dewey’s handwriting, and Donald lived outside — but why all the secrecy? What could be so drastic that Della was asking  _ Lena _ for something?

She shrugged and folded up the note, sticking it in her bag — she’d been on her way outside with the laptop she’d rescued from the “out of date” pile of technology that seemed to collect around here. It was a perfectly fine laptop, and she wasn’t quite comfortable enough to ask Scrooge to buy her something  _ new _ . She was more than happy to take an “old” phone (which was still newer than the one she’d pretended to use for her teenager facade) and a slightly used but still in fine condition laptop. She wasn’t ready to start asking for things quite yet.

Lena had barely knocked when the door cracked open, revealing Della. “Are you alone?” she half whispered. Lena raised an eyebrow.

“Just me, my shadow, and I. What—” Della grabbed her, dragging her inside and closing the door, locking it. “Uh… okay, should I be worried? Is this some kind of Moon madness?”

“You’re funny.” Della looked honestly distressed. Lena looked her up and down for a moment.

“Okay, seriously, what’s going on?”

“I was just… wondering… if you knew anything about… um…” She held up a phone. Lena stared at it in disbelief.

“You… don’t know how to use your phone?”

“Look, I had a flip phone when I went to space, all of this is just nonsense. But Scrooge threw this thing at me today and said he was tired of not being able to get in touch with me and I have no idea what to do with it. Can you help or not?”

“Um… sure.” Lena slid her bag off her shoulder. “What do you need help with?”

“...How do I turn it on?”

Oh boy. “Oooooooookay, come on.”

They settled on the bed together, and Lena started with turning the phone on, pulling out her own to show Della a few things while hers was going through the usual new phone set up.

“So do you know what texting is?”

Della looked insulted. “I’m not  _ Scrooge _ .”

“Scrooge knows how to use his phone.” Oh, if looks could have killed. “Everything is touchscreen. This is the app for messaging—”

“App?”

“Lication. Thing you put on your phone so it does stuff. So you just touch this icon aaaaaaaaaaaand Webby has texted me eight times already.” She flicked through the messages. “Jesus, Beagle Boys  _ again _ ? You’d think they’d learn. Not sorry I missed that one. Anyways, if you want to reply to a text you just…” She tapped the reply area and the keyboard popped up. She typed out a quick response to Webby before looking at Della’s phone again. “What do you want your passcode to be? Four to eight numbers, make sure it’s something you’ll remember. Or you can do what I do and leave it without a code just to annoy everyone.”

“Let’s do that for now.” Della picked up the phone, touching the screen gingerly. “Your phone has more icons than mine.”

“I have all my music and games on this thing.”

“Ooooooh, you can get music?”

“Yeah, even old-person music.” Della shoved Lena’s knee, and she smirked back. “You can buy music right from your phone, here…” She walked Della through finding the music store, signing in to Webby’s account when prompted.

“Hang on, are you sure that’s okay?”

“Webby and the boys all have their own accounts, they’re on one of Scrooge’s credit cards.” Lena shrugged. “She won’t care, the only things she ever gets are conspiracy theory podcasts.”

“Pod-what?”

“Never mind. Tap here to search, and just look up a band or singer or whatever. You can get individual songs or full albums.”

“How many can I get?”

“Well, Scrooge only gets the best of the best for his family, so I’m guessing you’ve got a  _ lot _ of space on that thing. I have… around two-thousand songs or something.”

“Seriously?” Della’s mouth dropped open. “ _ How _ ?”

Lena closed the music and went to texts, putting in her own number. “I don’t know, it just sort of happened. So, this is my phone number, I can text myself so I can have your info, and when that’s done…” She tapped the little i in the top corner of the phone, and the option to add a new contact popped up. She typed her name in and saved it. “Tada, you have my number saved forever in your phone. Unless you figure out how to delete things.”

“Okay, but can we go back to music? Seriously, two-thousand songs?  _ How? _ Why?”

Lena blushed slightly, ducking her head. “It’s… nothing. It’s stupid.”

There was a pause; when Della spoke, her voice was softer. “Try me.”

Lena hesitated for a moment before picking up her phone and opening the music app, showing Della her forty-five different playlists. “Music… helps, sometimes. When things are too… I mean…” She flicked through and found her  _ Sleep _ playlist, starting a song. It was a gentle, soothing tone, waves lapping in the background. “It kind of reminds me of sleeping on the beach. I have another one that has a lot forest-y sounds — you know, chirping, wind, stuff like that.” She went back to the playlists, skimming through them. “It’s like… a way of venting without actually talking to anyone, I guess? I have songs for when I’m… ya know, not feeling great, or if I just need something calm to listen to or—”

“Magica?” Della’s eyes had fixed on the playlist title as Lena flicked through the list. She sighed, running a hand through her hair.

“Yeah. That one’s for when I need to remind myself that nothing she did was normal and that she isn’t really my family. It’s stupid, I know.”

“I think it’s great,” Della said gently. “You know it wasn’t normal, and you know sometimes you need to be reminded of it.”

She was honestly proud of Lena for figuring out this coping method on her own. “Anyways, phone on, I can give you everyone’s numbers so you can practice putting them in your phone, calling is easy… anything else?”

“The boys are always taking pictures with their phones, can mine do that?”

“Sure, there should be a little camera icon…” Lena leaned over to look at Della’s phone, pointing it out. “If you want to get  _ really _ fancy you can check out their instagrams. Well, Dewey’s anyways. Louie’s is private.”

“Why?”

“Because he thinks he’s clever and doesn’t want anyone to find out about his nefarious deeds. He let me follow him, mostly because I made an account just to mess with Dewey.”

She pulled up the app, showing Della the latest photo Dewey had posted — Webby posing proudly next to a tangled pile of Beagle Boys, captioned  _ @superwebby saves the day again #futurespy. _

“Aw, that’s cute,” Della said, grinning. Lena bit down a smirk as she typed in a comment.

_ Maybe you’d have more followers if you posted more pictures of cute girls and less of yourself pretending to eat tacos _ .

“That’s mean!” Della scolded Lena, shoving her shoulder. Lena laughed. “Does he really not know it’s you?”

“If he does he hasn’t said anything. Which frankly is amazing because my username is shadowchild.”

“Does anyone besides Louie know?”

“I  _ think _ Webby does. She questioned me about it when Dewey showed her my profile, which is mostly beach pictures. The username tipped her off.”

“If I get that can I follow Dewey and Louie?”

“Louie won’t let you follow him. Dewey doesn’t have any restrictions though. He has like five followers, including me, and I’m pretty sure one of them is a fake account he set up to make himself look a little more popular.”

She pulled out her laptop so they could set up an email address for Della. Lena’s phone dinged with a new notification, and she opened it to see a couple replies on her comment.

_ @superwebby you think I’m cute? _

_ @deweydewnight seriously THAT’S your first question? Not ‘who are you and why are you such a jerk?’ _

Lena coughed down a laugh, setting her phone aside to help Della make her own account. “So what’s the point of all this, anyways?” Della asked curiously as she started scrolling through different people she could follow.

“A lot of things. Dewey uses it to try and be popular. Louie… I’m actually not sure what Louie does, he doesn’t post much. It’s best that way. Webby’s is mostly for commenting on other people’s pictures, she doesn’t have much on her profile. Huey uses his to document Jr. Woodchuck stuff.”

“Aw, he really  _ is _ my son.” Della smiled, clearly proud. “Do you follow him, too?”

“The nerd stuff is a bit much for me. Dewey at least has some fun pictures sometimes.”

Della chuckled. “Thanks for helping me out with all this. I know it probably seems stupid.”

“Not really.” Lena shrugged. “You were on the moon while phones were evolving. Why didn’t you ask one of the boys, though? They’d probably love helping you set this stuff up. Especially Dewey. Although then you’d risk having him as your background and lock pictures.”

“What and what?”

Lena tapped her phone screen, bringing up the lock screen — a nice shot of the beach at sunset. “Lock picture.” She unlocked the phone to show Della the background behind all the icons — her and Webby on the beach, probably from the same day as the lock screen. “Home background.”

“Got it.” Della looked at her own phone, sighing. “I dunno, it seems silly to ask them. I mean… I don’t want them to think I’m an idiot.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. “You built an entire rocket from scrap parts of the rocket you crashed. A  _ working _ rocket that got you back home. And accidentally sent Donald to the moon.”

“Exactly! But I can’t use a  _ phone _ . How stupid is that?”

“It’s not.” Lena nudged her knee against Della’s. “I can put two-thousand songs on my phone and organize them into an obscene number of playlists but I can’t build a rocket. And I probably couldn’t have survived on the moon for ten years. I seem to recall being told once that nobody’s perfect.”

Della sighed, giving Lena a small smile. “It’s easier to tell other people to be nice to themselves than it is to be nice to yourself sometimes.”

“Been there. Got a playlist for it.” Lena smiled wryly. “There’s a song for everything.”

“I better get looking, then.”

* * *

“Oooh oooh oooh, wait, I think I’ve got it this time Uncle Scrooge just hold still…”

“Della for the love of — this is  _ not _ what I meant when I said you needed a phone.”

The boys and Webby walked in to find their mother and grand-uncle in the foyer, Della determinedly trying to take a selfie. Lena was sitting on the stairs, smiling smugly as she watched.

“Lena, I  _ know _ this is your fault.”

“Should’ve taught her how to use the phone yourself.”

“You had  _ way _ too much fun with this, didn’t you?” Webby asked cheerfully, sitting on the stairs with Lena.

“Tell me you don’t think this is hilarious.”

Della snapped another picture, then brought her phone down to look at it. “Aw, come on! Well, that one was closer…”

“How long have they been at it?”

“Half an hour. She keeps getting their foreheads.”

The girls giggled as they settled in to watch the show.


	2. How To Mom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Della tries.

Della Duck wasn’t a good mother.

She wasn’t neglectful, she wasn’t mean or terrible, she just… had no idea what she was doing. She had missed the time of the boys’ lives when she was supposed to  _ learn _ how to mom. She was trying — she really was. She was finding ways to connect with them and get to know them better. But they were grown up, old enough to have their own thoughts and opinions and independence. It wasn’t easy to find a place in their world. Likewise, the boys were still trying to figure out where she fit in. What her place was in this new family they had created while she was gone. A family that included  _ Agent Twenty-Two _ of all people, a mini twenty-two with an angelic face and and the ability to kill them all with a paperclip, and the teenage semi-shadow of Magica de Spell.

Della wasn’t sure which part of that thought was the weirdest.

She  _ did _ know she had a soft spot for Lena de Spell. The girl clearly had no idea where  _ her _ place was in this family, either; Scrooge had told Della the story, and it was heart-breaking. The kid needed a parent. And… Della needed a kid to practice with.

Not that Lena was just a crash test dummy. She was a messed up kid who needed help. She  _ needed _ a parent. Maybe even a parent who could understand some of what she had been through. The Shadow Realm and space were both black, empty voids — after all. How much of a difference could there be?   
  
And the self-hatred was strong with Lena. It broke Della’s heart sometimes.

“So all she had for fifteen years was Magica de Spell living in her shadow?” Della still couldn’t wrap her mind around such a concept. It sounded miserable. Scrooge nodded grimly.

“They were connected. Possibly still are. I’m not really sure how it works to be honest, and I don’t think she does either.”

“But Magica can’t hurt her.”

Scrooge shook his head. “She’d be lucky if she could hurt a fly right now. Lena’s got her magic.”

“I think I trust it more in a kid’s hands than I would in Magica’s,” Della mumbled darkly.

“Here, here.” Scrooge sighed. “I’m not sorry I offered her a home, but… I’m not sure how to help her now, either. She’s unique.”

“Giving her a permanent home and adults who won’t hurt her is probably a good place to start. We can just… figure it out from there.”

Scrooge raised an eyebrow. “You care about her.” It wasn’t a question.

“You don’t?”

“Of course I do, but you’ve barely known her for two weeks.”

Della opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it again, then she just sighed, dropping her head to stare at the floor. “The boys don’t need me. Don’t get me wrong, I love them. If I could pick up all three of them and hug them for a week without letting go, I would. And I know they love me and all of this is an adjusting period for all of us.” She wrung her hands together anxiously. “But they’re older, they have their own things, they don’t want to spend all their time, ya know, with their mom hanging over them. They don’t  _ need _ me. They want me, sure. I hope. It’s just… harder to connect with them. But Lena… she needs someone. She’s never had a good parental figure. And she’s got baggage with all of you. I’m a blank slate.”

“That is… surprisingly well thought out,” Scrooge said, staring at his niece.

“I can think ahead too.” Della stood, stretching her arms.

“So you’re just going to be everybody’s mother?”

“Sure. Why not?” She shrugged, turning to leave the office.

“Della.”

Uh oh. Serious voice. Della looked back over her shoulder at Scrooge. “I know you always want to help everything and everyone. I admire that. But Lena isn’t an excuse to avoid your own problems. You know that, right?”

“Of course I know that.” Della frowned. “Do you really think I’d use a kid like that?”

“I think you’ve been home for almost a month, and I haven’t heard one word about what happened to you on the moon.”

“I jumped around for ten years collecting pieces of metal and fighting a moon mite.” Della shrugged again. “Run of the mill moon stuff.”

Scrooge sighed as Della left. Stubborn as a rock. Not that he thought Della’s heart wasn’t in the right place. He just knew nothing good every came from bottling things up, especially in this family.

* * *

“All right, kiddo, ready to try this again?”

“Yeah!” Huey grinned, fingers poised over the keyboard. “Let’s go!”

They started up the game, and Huey proceeded to teach Della how farming worked. Working the land wasn’t exactly Della’s idea of a good time, but Huey enjoyed it. And they’d agreed to start over, teaching each other about the different sides of the game. Huey got to go first since the last time had been… less than stellar.

“Okay, now we need the seeds… are you  _ sure _ you’re not bored?”

“How could I be bored when I get to hang out with you?”

Huey’s expression was worth three hours of farming, Della thought with a smile. “Aaawww, it’ll be fun!” They heard Webby saying as the front door creaked open.

“No way. Not a chance.”

“The fae  _ are _ more likely to curse us if we insult them…”

“I am  _ not _ helping summon any fae.”

Huey looked over his shoulder, calling, “That sounds like an unacceptable use of magic.”

“It’s for science!” Webby called back, bouncing in.

“Magic for science?”

“She  _ really _ wants to meet a fairy,” Lena said as she and Violet followed Lena in.

“I think it would fascinating,” Violet admitted.

“I think one of us would end up turned into a fish. Even Aunt Magica doesn’t — didn’t mess with the fae. And that’s the woman who used a cursed gem to create a money shark and named it  _ Tiffany _ .”

“Tiffany?” Huey and Webby said in the same voice, laughing.

“What’s that story?” Della asked, raising an eyebrow. Violet shrugged.

“I recall a golden monster breaking out of the money bin, we saw it on the news…”

“Magica snuck this weird gem into the money bin—”

“Excuse me,” Lena cut Webby off. “ _ Magica _ snuck it in? Give me credit for my hard work.”

Webby rolled her eyes good naturedly. “She was using the gem to try and find Scrooge’s dime, and she assumed it was there.”

“She thought the thing Uncle Scrooge had her trapped in was just casually hanging around the money bin?” Della asked in disbelief. “She didn’t really do her research, did she?”

Lena coughed, rubbing the back of her head. “I was supposed to find out where the dime was. In my defense, she didn’t disagree when I said it’s probably in the money bin because where  _ else _ would a crazy old man with too much money keep a stupid dime?”

“Long story short, the gem created a shark out of the gold in the money bin, it ate us all, and…” Webby tilted her head. “Actually, I have no idea how it was destroyed.”

“Again, no credit for my hard work.”

Everyone looked at Lena. “ _ You _ destroyed it?” Huey asked doubtfully. Lena shrugged.

“I used magic and it happened to blow up at the same time. You can decide if the two are related or not.”

She was tugging at the bracelet on her wrist, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable. Webby grinned, tackling her and hugging her tight. “I  _ knew _ you were always on our side. So… fae?”

“Absolutely  _ not _ .”

* * *

Della wondered how long it would take her body to adjust to actual days and nights after ten years of just sleeping whenever she was tired. It made trying to keep a normal sleep schedule hard. On the other hand, it gave her plenty of time to catch up with Donald, Scrooge, and Beakley, since apparently no over the age of fifteen slept in this house.

_ Make that fourteen _ , Della corrected herself as she walked into the kitchen and saw Lena unwrapping a granola bar. “Let me guess — you summoned the fae and they cursed you to never sleep again?”

“Hmn?” Lena looked up, and laughed a bit. “Nah. The fae can’t do any worse than Magica already has.”

“That’s… reassuring, I think?” She tried so hard to be casual about everything that had happened. But they’d all seen the unpleasant results when the trauma broke through.

“What’s your excuse?” Lena jumped up onto the counter, munching on her granola bar. “Moon jetlag?”

“Pretty much.” Della sighed, poking through cabinets. The  _ good _ alcohol was in Scrooge’s office — she’d been breaking in to get it since she was eighteen. But Beakley had to have  _ something _ out here, out of the reach of kids. “Really hard to tell the difference between day and night when you’re on the thing that only shows up at night.”

“Wait, so you were there during the lunar eclipse. What was  _ that _ like?”

“Dark.” Aha! Vodka. She grabbed the bottle and went to the fridge. “It was kind of cool, actually. I just hunkered down and waited. Think I fell asleep for a bit. It was like being wrapped up in black cotton. No noise, no light, just… me.”

“Sounds familiar. Don’t suppose you’re going to share that?”

Della laughed. “Maybe when you turn eighteen.”

“Isn’t the drinking age twenty-one?”

“Yeah, but Donald and I started stealing stuff from Scrooge after we turned eighteen, so I can’t be a hypocrite about it. What sounds familiar?”

“Huh? Oh.” Lena crumpled up the wrapper, tossing it into the trash. It didn’t make it, of course. “That feeling you were describing. Being in that kind of in-between place. That’s how the Shadow Realm felt for a long time.”

Della turned away from mixing her drink, a little surprised. As far as anyone knew, Lena hadn’t talked about  _ that _ with anyone except maybe Webby — and the other girl certainly wasn’t telling. “It took me a while to actually… I’m not sure how to put this… make a form that was separate from Webby’s. I could manifest  _ in _ her shadow, like Magica did, but it was kind of like laying in water. I could see and I could vaguely hear, and eventually I sunk back down. The first few… months, I guess, I kind of lost track of time — were exhausting. I didn’t really have any magic to work with; I had to work up my strength bit by bit. Have you tried to rebuild a body?” 

Della looked down at her metal leg. “Not a whole one, no.”

Lena grimaced. “Right. Sorry.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it.” Della finished mixing her drink and took a sip. Not bad for her first try in ten years. “At least I had something physical to work with. You… had to build a body out of shadows?”

“Pretty much. Shadows and my own imagination. It’s really hard to remember what you look like when you don’t see your reflection on a daily basis.” Della bit down a shudder, remembering the staring contest with her own reflection. She took another sip. “Webby had pictures hanging up, though. If she stood in the right place and the right light, I could come out while her shadow was cast against a wall and look right at them.” Lena shook her head, coming out of her half daze. “I got off track. The point is, that black cotton ball feeling was basically my life all the time. It was… actually kind of nice.” She laughed humorlessly. “You’d think after spending six months in the shadow realm I’d want as much light as I could possibly get, but…”

“But the dark is safer and feels more comfortable.” Another sip. “Yeah. I know that feeling.” Della shook her head. “It’s late. You should get back to bed.”

“Go back to bed and  _ not _ sleep. That’s a great use of my time.”

“Gotta be better than sitting here dragging all this up.”

“It’s… not so bad, actually.” Della blinked. “It’s hard to describe all of this. And I know Webby  _ tries _ to get it, but there’s nothing I can do to make her understand what being trapped there was really like. It’s easier not to have twenty minutes of backstory and description.”

“Yeah… that’s fair,” Della admitted. “Uncle Scrooge keeps trying to ask me about the moon and it’s like… what can I say, you know? How do you describe an endless void and silence you can physically feel?”

“Here, here.” Lena jumped down and grabbed the wrapper throw it in the trash for real. “I should probably get back upstairs. Webby panics a little if she wakes up and I’m gone. Try not to drink too much.”

“Psh.” Della rolled her eyes, reaching out to ruffle Lena’s hair as she walked by; the teen ducked away, batting Della’s hand. She disappeared, presumably back upstairs to the loft she and Webby shared, and Della leaned against the counter, sipping her drink absentmindedly.

“That’s how you connect, lass.”

Della yelped and jumped, looking to see Scrooge standing in the door. “Wha — how long have you—”

Scrooge chuckled, making his way to the stove to put on the kettle. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the you two were havin’ a serious conversation. I woulda felt bad interruptin’.”

It probably would have shut the conversation down a lot sooner. “What do you mean?” Della asked instead.

“You said you weren’t sure how to connect with the boys. But you just did it perfectly. Get on their level and  _ talk _ to them. Be honest with them.”

“You kinda made that impossible when you made me sound better than I am,” Della muttered. Scrooge sighed.

“I may have glorified you a bit. But in my defense, I thought you were dead. That doesn’t stop you from talking to them.”

“I can’t just  _ talk _ to them. They expect, like… Super Duck, and they’re getting  _ me _ .”

“There’s nothing  _ wrong _ with you.” Scrooge paused. “Well… no more than what’s wrong with any of us.”

Della chuckled quietly, eyes fixed on the floor. “I’ve already let them down enough. They don’t need to know how broken I am on top of that.”

Scrooge looked at her for a long moment, remembering how much he had let the boys down when they had met him. And then again when he had told them about Della. He was an expert in being a disappointment.

But Della needed to figure that out on her own.

“You won’t know until you try, lass.” Della combed her fingers through her hair, sighing. Scrooge waited for an answer he knew wasn’t coming. “You talked to Lena.”

“Did you hear that thing she said about someone being able to understand without twenty minutes of backstory?” Scrooge nodded. “She gets it. I don’t need to explain feeling like a failure and feeling like I betrayed everyone I love because she has that going on in her head all the time. It  _ sucks _ , she’s a kid and she doesn’t deserve that, but… she gets it. Besides, I can’t let her down if she already doesn’t expect anything from me.”

“Sooner or later you’ll have to tell them the truth.”

“Well. I vote later.” Della drained her glass and put it in the sink, pushing herself off the counter. “What are you doing awake, anyway?”

“The same thing you and Lena are doing, I assume.”

“Hating yourself. Got it.”


	3. Sleepless In Duckburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Webby goes on her first adventure since Lena returned, leaving Lena to make her way alone. Well, alone with Beakley, Della, and Duckworth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tl;dr this month has sucked but NaNoWriMo project is a huge Ducktales fanfic that I think I'm going to post because it's like 75984753948573 words wrong (well it's only 40kish at this point but it WILL be 37598437590487 at some point I have like 50 chapters planned). So hey, that's something.

It was at least a month before Webby felt okay going on an adventure, knowing Lena was safe and wouldn’t just disappear again. Finding an ancient, lost city probably did a lot to lure her out as well.

“Are you  _ sure _ you’re going to be okay—?”

“Am I going to be okay, in a mansion with an ex-spy, a ghost butler, and an adventurer who survived ten years on the moon,  _ and _ high-tech security  _ and _ magical warding?” Lena raised an eyebrow, smiling. “I think I’ll be fine, Pink. Go on. Find a lost city. Bring me back a souvenir.”

Webby chewed on her knuckles, looking back at the boys, who were gathering their gear by the door and waiting for Scrooge while Della fussed. “What if you get lonely?”

“Then I’ll call Violet. Or go hang out with Della. Or, I dunno, bake something with Tea Time. Webby, come on, I’m good. You have your phone, we can text until you lose service. And you’ll be back like, tomorrow, as long as nothing tries to sacrifice you, right? I can survive a whole day on my own. I’m a big girl. Promise.”

“Webby, lezzgo!” Dewey called as Scrooge joined them. “Launchpad’s waiting.”

“You sure you don’t wanna come, Lena?” Huey added. 

“I am  _ absolutely sure _ I don’t want to go and hunt down an ancient city where something will probably try to kill me. I reserve the right to wait at least a year before I go out and try to die.”

“Fiiiiiine.” Webby sighed, hugging Lena tight. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

“Just try not to die.”

She waved as the group left, Della standing off to the side and pouting. “What’s up with you?” Lena asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure you can go if you want.”

“Scrooge took Donald and I to try and find this place when we were fifteen. We got lost, wandered around a forest for four days, and Donald accidentally slept in poison ivy. I don’t think I’m meant to see the city.” She shrugged. “Besides, Launchpad and I agreed to trade off piloting duty, and I can’t fly with him.”

“That’s fair.”

* * *

Sleep was always fleeting at best. Apparently it was worse without Webby. Lena huffed, rolling over to stare at the clock. It was never  _ quiet _ in the room — Webby was always turning over, and sometimes she mumbled in her sleep. Lena had gotten used to the soundtrack. It was  _ too quiet _ now. And, as much as she hated to admit it, she was lonely. She’d been texting Webby and Violet until Webby lost service, then texted Violet until Violet went to bed, and now it was after midnight and there was no one left to bother.

_ How is sleeping so hard? _ She yanked the blankets up over her head, groaning. It was too quiet. She reached for her phone after a moment, finding some gentle music to play and curling up, trying to clear her mind. Never easy.

_ What was that sleep meditation Tea Time was telling me about? _ She frowned, trying to scrounge up the memories.  _ I am calm and still. The world is sleeping and all is well. I welcome sleep into my being. I am breathing deeply and calmly, becoming more and more relaxed with each breath _ . Thank god no one could read her mind. She felt so stupid. Wait, that wasn’t helping.  _ I am calm and still. The world is sleeping and all is well. I welcome sleep into my being. I am breathing deeply and calmly, becoming more and more relaxed with each breath. I am calm and still. The world is sleeping and all is well _ …

Her eyes snapped open again. She was no longer in her comfortable bed, in the loft, repeating words to herself in her head. Instead, she was standing in a dark room, surrounded by mirrors, while a high-pitched, horribly familiar cackling echoed around her.

“You’re not real,” she breathed, eyes focused upward as she turned. “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’rea not real.”

_ “Of course I’m real, you ridiculous girl. _ ” She shivered. That voice… “ _ I’m real, and I’m always with you _ .”

“You are  _ not _ !” She clenched her fists, trying to keep her breathing calm. “You’re not real, and you’re not  _ here _ !”

“ _ Oh, I’m closer than you think _ .” She chuckled. “ _ Look in the mirror _ .”

Lena’s head snapped down, and her eyes widened when she met her own gaze in the mirror. Her own, yellow gaze, with slit-like pupils. A shaking hand raised to probe her green-feathered face, brush through her black hair…

“Nonononononono…”

She backed up, into another mirror, and whirled around, seeing her reflection again. Magica laughed. “ _ You’ll never get rid of me, Lena _ .”

“ _ Shut up _ !” Lena drove her fist into the mirror, then whirled and hit the other. There were mirrors on all sides, though, and every time she punched one, the others seemed to fix themselves. “Shut up, shut up,  _ shut up _ !”

She swung out, hitting another mirror…

“Ow!”

And her eyes flew open once more. Her throat was raw, her breathing heavy, and she bolted up, looking around wildly. The first thing she saw was Della on the floor, holding her beak, while Beakley helped her up. “What — What—”

The dream crashed into her again, and she immediately began checking herself over, picking at her feather, making sure each one was white, then diving for her phone to check her face in the front-facing camera. Regular eyes. White hair with a pink streak.

“Lena. Hey.”

Della gently took the phone from Lena, setting it aside, and Lena realized she was wheezing, trying desperately to fill her lungs. “W-What’re you… what’s…”

“Breathe first,” Della said. “Questions after.”

A large hand rested against her back as Beakley sat down on the other side of the bed; she closed her eyes, trying to focus on the touch of the hands and Della’s soft voice. “I’m… I’m okay,” she finally stuttered, hiccuping and scrubbing her eyes. “Why’re you both here?”

“You were screaming,” Beakley said, and Lena winced. It wasn’t the first time she had screamed loud enough to be heard a floor below. At least Beakley and Della were the only ones home to hear it (besides Duckworth, but he didn’t really count). Her throat certainly  _ felt _ like she had been screaming bloody murder, she thought bitterly, running her hands through her hair and taking a shuddering breath. 

“I’m sorry…”

“It’s all good, kid,” Della assured her. “You wanna talk about it?”

She shook her head, tears filling her eyes, and she furiously began scrubbing again. “Don’t do that,” Beakley scolded her gently, taking her hands. “You’ll make it worse.”

Lena laughed humorlessly. “M’I trying to impress someone?”

“Still capable of sarcasm,” the woman noted wryly. “I think she’ll be okay.”

“Always am.” Lena sniffed, dragging her arm across her eyes. “What doesn’t kill me better hide before Webby gets to it, right?”

“Very true.” Beakley squeezed Lena’s shoulder, standing. “I’m going to make some tea.”

“Does tea actually solve all problems?”

“No, but it will help with your throat.”

Lena grimaced, rubbing her throat. Of course she’d noticed the slight rasp in Lena’s voice. Della watched Beakley climb down, then looked back at Lena.

“So that was a bad one, then.” Lena nodded silently. “Sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

Lena looked down at her hands, shivering slightly. “Did you ever meet Magica?”

“Unfortunately, yes. There was a long time where we couldn’t go anywhere without her ambushing us.”

“Do… Do I look like her?”

Della was silent for a long moment. “Is that what you were dreaming about?” Another nod. “No, Lena. You don’t look like her at all. You look like you. You look just like you have since the day Webby dragged you down the stairs screaming that you were okay, you were home, you were safe, and so on, and it took me ten minutes to ask who you were because everyone was yelling.”

Lena smiled weakly. That had been so chaotic. And overwhelming. And wonderful. It had felt so much like a  _ welcome home _ , even if she didn’t deserve it. The smile faded after a moment, though. “What’ll happen if I  _ do _ start to look like her? We don’t know what — I mean, there’s nothing else like me. We don’t know what to expect.”

“No,” Della admitted. “We don’t. We don’t know if you’ll start to look like Magica, or if you’ll age. No one knows. And if you do start to look like her… that’ll suck. But it doesn’t change who you are. You’re still going to be Webby’s best friend, you’re still going to be the person who plays tricks on the boys and makes fun of them, you’re still going to be the only person in the entire world who can look at an ex-spy and call her Tea Time and Colonel Crumpet with complete confidence. No matter what happens, you’re  _ always _ going to be you, as long as that’s what you want. No one controls you but you. It’s what’s on the inside, right?”

Lena looked at her hands, then back at Della. “Yeah,” she said finally. “It’s what’s on the inside.”

Della smiled, wrapping an arm around Lena’s shoulders and pulling her close, running her fingers through Lena’s hair. Lena leaned tiredly into Della, sighing.

“Why do you waste your time with me?”

“Shush.” Della held her tighter. “It’s not a waste of time.  _ You _ are not a waste of time.”

Lena just shrugged. Della hesitated for a moment before she began humming the song she’d sung to the boys before they hatched. The song she’d never gotten to sing to them after they were born. Lena sighed faintly, tension slowly draining from her body as she relaxed into Della’s side. And it gave her an idea. A relatively stupid idea, but weren’t those her best?

“ _ Look to the stars, my darling child, life is strange and vast, filled with wonders and joys _ ,” she sang slowly, waiting for Lena to shrink away or show some form of displeasure. But it never came; if anything, Lena relaxed further, her breathing evening out slightly, “ _ Face each new sun with eyes clear and true, unafraid of the unknown, because I’ll face it all with you _ …”

She drifted off into humming again, watching as Lena slowly fell back to sleep. “Well,” a quiet voice said; Beakley had returned with the tea. “There’s a sight you don’t see often.”

“Her asleep?”

“Asleep and almost at peace.” Beakley climbed fully into the loft, helping Della lie Lena back down and covering her with the blanket. “That must be some song.”

“I sang it to a baby alien once.”

“...Of course.” Beakley made sure Lena was good and tucked in before heading for the hatch. She paused when she saw Della taking a seat at Webby’s desk. “Are you staying?”

“Yeah. Just, you know, want to make sure she’s okay.”

Beakley nodded, smiling faintly. “Of course. Try to get some rest at some point.”

“I will. Night, Beakley.”

“Good night, Della.”

It was fitting, the housemaid thought as she climbed down the ladder. Lena had never had a mother. Della hadn’t had a chance to be a mother. It was almost serendipitous that they had come home at nearly the same time. They were good for each other.


	4. Tables Turned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turns out Lena's learned a lot from being helped through her own panic attack and issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy some mix of angst, and hurt/comfort, and a wee bit of fluff

“I think you broke them.”

“Oh, they’ll be fine. ...I think. How long have they been standing there like that?”

“Going on thirty seconds.”

“Look at it,” Dewey finally breathed, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

“The Magnum Skyscraper.” Huey was in awe. “The world’s tallest roller coaster. It’s over four-hundred and fifty-six feet.”

“You can touch the clouds.”

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” Webby asked.

“Yup,” the boys in unison. “Let’s go!”

“Hang on,” Della said quickly, catching Louie by the hood before anyone could run off. “Rules. You all have your phones on you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“If I call, you answer, or you’re stuck with me for the rest of the day. Got it?”

“Yes.”

“No one wanders off alone — some combination of you four has to be together at all times.”

“Got it.”

“And no one dies on any rides.”

“Okay.”

Della let Louie go, and they started to run off again. “Lena, you coming?” Webby asked excitedly, bouncing. Lena looked up at the roller coaster in question, and grimaced.

“Pass. I’m just gonna go cheat at some games. That’s more my speed.” Della raised an eyebrow at Lena. “What? You know they’re all rigged anyways.”

Webby sighed. “Win me something?”

“The biggest, pinkest stuffed animal I can find, promise.”

That got her a grin before Webby turned to run off with the boys. “Will you win  _ me _ something big and fluffy too?” Della teased, nudging Lena.

“Only if you buy me cotton candy.”

“Deal.”

They found cotton candy easily enough, and began exploring the games while they wandered. “Hey.” Lena pointed out a big green alien at one booth. “How about that?”

“You’re  _ hilarious _ .”

“I like to think so.” Her eyes fell on a giant stuffed unicorn, and she almost laughed. “Oooooh, Sword Horse.”

“Sword Horse? As in, the thing Uncle Scrooge has in the other bin?”

“You know about it?”

“I helped fight it!” Della grinned proudly. “One of my first big catches when I was fifteen. I used Donald as bait.”

“Sounds right.”

They stopped at the game with the unicorn — it was big and fluffy and it would make Webby laugh. It was perfect.

The game was one of those water gun race games, and Lena beamed. She barely had to cheat at those. Once she got lined up with the target, she just had to freeze the gun and it was was easy.

“Impressive,” Della said as the attendant hand Lena the giant unicorn.

“I have a certain set of special skills that come in handy at times like these.”

They moved along the row of games, stopping every now and again to play something when they saw a prize they thought one of the kids would like — or one  _ they _ would like. Della ended up with an alien eventually, and Lena found a stuffed dog she couldn’t resist. The teen was clearly in her element as she walked along with confidence Della rarely saw in her, especially out around other people.

“Okay, I think it’s time to find the kids, drop the prizes off in the car, and get some lunch,” Della said, rearranging the stuffed animals and toys piled in her arms. “If the kids can still eat after riding that giant roller coaster.”

“Seriously. Want me to call them?”

“Could you? Kinda got my hands full here.”

Lena got her phone out of her bag, pulling up Louie’s number — of the four, he was mostly likely to be looking at his at any given time — while Della tried to see where she was going. 

“He’s not answering.” Lena rolled her eyes. “Forget it, gimme your stuff.”

“What are you going to—” She blinked out of existence once she had Della’s armful of prizes. “Oh. She’s gotten good at that.”

She stepped off to the side to wait, playing with her phone and fiddling with the front-facing camera. She still didn’t understand this thing.

“Much easier,” Lena said brightly as she returned to Della’s side. “Don’t tell Scrooge I took a shortcut.”

“Psh. Come on, let’s find the kids and see about lunch.”

They found the group debating what to do next not far from the roller coaster. “Hey.” Lena flicked the back of Louie’s head. “You’re supposed to answer your phone or you get put on a leash, remember?”

“Only if Mom calls,” Louie grumbled, rubbing his head.

“Okay, I gotta give him that one.” Della laughed. “You guys hungry?”

“No,” Dewey groaned. He was leaning on Webby and definitely looked like he was about to throw up.

“We were gonna check out the house of mirrors,” Huey said, looking up from the map he had found. “It’s supposed to be one of the best in the country.”

“Oh. Mirrors. Fun.” Della chuckled nervously. “Well I guess Lena and I can—”

“Actually, I want to check that out,” Lena jumped in. “Did you know mirrors are portals to other dimensions? When you look in a mirror, you’re looking at another version of yourself in another world.”

“Haha, very funny,” Dewey grumbled as they started off toward the house of mirrors.

“It’s true. There are even stories of people seeing their parallel selves moving independently — the reflection just moves all on its own. And sometimes your parallel self pulls you into their world and replaces you out here.”

“ _ Lena _ .”

Lena laughed, jogging to catch up with Webby, who was bouncing ahead, leading the group.

No stories about parallel dimensions could stop all five kids from running for the mirror house as soon as they found it, of course. Della hesitated a few feet from the door, a lump in her throat. “Mom?” Huey had stopped to watch her, head tilted slightly. “You okay?”

_ You can’t let your kids know you’re afraid of  _ mirrors _ . Come on, Della _ .

“Yeah.” She put on a smile, catching up with Huey, resting a hand on his head. “Let’s do this.”

The room was disorienting, with mirrors at different angles and different heights, reflecting off each other, while kids ran around and their parents chased them. Della’s kids were, of course, immediately lost. “Okay,” she whispered, taking a couple of deep breaths. “Let’s go. You’re fine. You’re Della Duck. You can do anything.”

“Whooooooa, there are five Deweys!” She heard Webby call as she wandered down one aisle, looking around. Her own face reflected back at her from five different angles.

_ When you look in a mirror, you’re looking at another version of yourself in another world. _

Just a story. Lena was trying to scare Dewey. Della wondered if there were other versions of her who had made better life choices…

She jumped when she heard Huey screech, and Lena laughing. “Not funny!”

“It was kiiiiiiiiinda funny,” Louie called back. Della saw a flash of green in the mirror above her and looked up. But it was just her own face. She looked away quickly, turning on her heel. She’d just tell the kids she’d gotten hungry and wanted a churro or something. Of course then she’d have to  _ buy _ a churro, and she wasn’t particularly hungry. She’d give it to Dewey. Wait, no, he was sick. Louie. She could say she bought two and overestimated how hungry she was. Yeah. It was perfect. It was great. It was…

Where was the exit?

Della stopped, looking around, trying to ignore the mirrors. She hadn’t wandered that far in. Had she turned? She couldn’t remember. The kids were giggling. Even Lena. That was rare. Where was the door? Della turned again, but there were just more mirrors.

“ _ And sometimes your parallel self pulls you into their world and replaces you out here _ .”

Maybe a parallel version of her would be a better mother. Maybe it would be one who knew how to talk to her kids without going overboard one way or the other — totally fun or totally discipline. Why couldn’t she find a balance? Did the kids even take her seriously?

“Look, I’m tall!”

“Eeeeww, that’s not tall, that’s just creepy.”

“I’m short!”

“You’re  _ already _ short, Pink.”

“Yeah but now I’m pocket-sized.”

“I don’t need a pocket-size Webby. You make me carry you on my back.”

“What if she was pocket-sized but she could grow? Pull her out and throw her at an enemy —  _ wham _ ! They’d never know what hit them.”

Della covered her ears. The kids were too loud. She couldn’t think. What was she doing? Right, exit. She needed an exit. She needed to get out of here. She turned again, hands still firmly over her ears — and nearly walked right into a mirror. Her reflection was warped and twisted, like some weird modern art piece. Fractured, in pieces. Maybe that was the version of her who never came home.

She yelped, unable to help herself, and staggered back, collapsing to hunch on her feet, pressing her face into her knees and her hands over her head. She wasn’t  _ entirely _ sure when she had started hyperventilated, but her head was spinning and there was a sharp pain in her chest.

_ I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m not there. I’m not there. _ She repeated the mantra over and over. She was safe. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there.

_ But when did you leave? _

A hand rested over Della’s, and suddenly everything was silent, save for one voice. “Della?” It sounded like it was echoing down a hall, but it was one of her kids. She knew their voices anywhere.

The world was dark and blurry when Della lifted her head, and for a moment she panicked. It was dark. Why couldn’t she see?

Then a smudge of pink appeared in front of her, and she scrubbed the tears from her eyes. Lena. “W-What?” Della looked around, trembling. It felt like she had stepped into a negative photograph. But the mirrors weren’t reflecting anything. That was nice. “What happened? Where—”

“Shadow Realm,” Lena said gently, settling in front of Della. “It’s basically a giant sensory deprivation dimension. Handy when you need to get away from noise or lights.”

“That’s…” Amazing, she wanted to say. Ingenious. “You spent six months here?” was what came out of her mouth. She could’ve hit herself.

“I got used to it.” Lena shrugged. “What happened?”

Della finally focused on Lena, noting the concern on the teen’s face. And she felt terrible. She was being selfish, as usual. Lena wasn’t supposed to be taking care of her.

“Nothing.” She was shaking as she tried to push herself up. “Come on, we should get back—”

“Della.” Lena grabbed her hand, tugging her back down. “I get it. Just… please?”

It was amazing how much she could say with so few words. Della looked at her for a moment before collapsing back to her knees, arms wrapped around herself. “There are no other people on the moon.”

“Right…”

“I was alone. Completely alone. For  _ ten years _ . Ten years with nothing but me, my voice, and my reflection in the mirror.” Lena winced, looking around the mirror house. “One day I was so desperate to just  _ see _ someone that I sat in front of the mirror and… looked at myself. It turned into a three-week staring contest. Or three minutes. Or three hours. I don’t know. Time is meaningless in space.” Della laughed, a very unsettling and humorless laugh. “I just sat there staring at my own reflection. I don’t remember if I slept or ate. I just sat there staring at myself. Ridiculous, right?”

“No,” Lena said quietly. She didn’t think Della was listening, though.

“And now I’m afraid of mirrors. Mirrors! Did you ever notice the bathroom in my suite doesn’t have one?” She had, actually. But it had never occurred to her to question it. Della laughed, another odd, worrying laugh. “Mirrors. Because I lost track of time and just wanted to see another person. And I was never even alone! The Moonlanders were like, fifty feet away from me that entire time! Lunaris  _ knew _ I was there and he just left me alone. For ten years. And now I’m afraid of mirrors.”

That last part was quiet and simple, as if stating a fact. “Then why the hell did you come in here?” Lena asked, bewildered.

“Because the boys were expecting me to, and what was I supposed to say? No, sorry, I’m broken, can’t stand the sight of myself in a mirror. Stared at my reflection for so long I thought it was another person.” Lena made a note to be mad at herself later. Della was twisting her fingers together and pulling them, cracking knuckles. It was a little disturbing. But it gave Lena an idea.

“Here.” She reached behind her neck to unclip her necklace, with the pendant and the moonstone ring from Selene, and gently pushed it into Della’s hand. That snapped her out of whatever… state she was in. She shook her head, looking at her hand.

“What…?”

“It helps me.” Lena shrugged. “When I’m freaking out or something, you know. Something to fiddle with.”

Della took a deep breath, brushing her thumb against the pendant and trying to reel herself in. “Sorry,” she whispered.  _ Just Breathe _ .

“Like I haven’t had worse meltdowns,” Lena said with a dry smile. Della shook her head.

Della shook her head. “It’s different.”

“Different than what? How is  _ this _ —” She waved a hand around them, “any different or worse than spending ten years stuck on the moon? It all seems pretty similar to me.”

“Because I did it to  _ myself _ , Lena.” Her fingers clenched around the pendant. “You didn’t  _ ask _ Magica to abuse you and torture you and trap you in this place. You didn’t ask her to use you and then try to throw you away. But I climbed into that rocket. I knew Scrooge was making it, and I didn’t stop him. I didn’t tell him that Donald was right, and I needed to grow up and think of my kids. I let him build it. And when I knew it was done, I snuck in. I just… I wanted to see. I thought I could have it all. See the stars, have my kids. I was so  _ selfish _ . And the universe punished me for it. I spent ten years on the moon, watching the Earth, knowing my boys were growing up without me, thinking I’d never meet them. And that was  _ my _ fault. No one forced me into the rocket. No one threatened me or hurt me. I had every choice and I chose wrong every time. I destroyed my family, the kids didn’t know Scrooge for ten years, Donald and Scrooge refused to speak to each other, and that’s  _ my fault _ . I did this to myself and to them. What right do I have to still be upset?”

Lena was quiet for a moment. “I tried to tell Scrooge about Magica,” she said slowly. “I… had a thing, I realized how terrible Magica really was, and I tried to tell him, but she stopped me and took over my body. But I could have told them any time before that. I could have told Webby, or Beakley,  _ anyone _ . I knew Magica was evil. I didn’t even  _ like _ her. But I never told anyone. I never tried to stop her. I knew what she was doing was wrong, but I didn’t care, because Magica had promised me freedom if I just did this for her. I knew it made me evil. I just didn’t care.”

Della shook her head. “She used you, Lena. It’s different.”

“And you made a mistake. It was a  _ stupid _ mistake, and you paid for it, but… you’re here now. Blaming yourself isn’t going to do any good.”

Della sighed, raising her head after a moment to give Lena a small smile. “You’re too smart sometimes, kid.”

“Don’t tell anyone. I have an image to keep.”

That got her a small shove, and Della laughed weakly. “Don’t worry, I won’t ruin your rebel punk image.”

“Good.” Lena pushed herself up, looking around. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“I… couldn’t find the exit,” Della admitted, ducking her head. Lena grinned, offering Della a hand.

“We’re basically ghosts. Walls are a suggestion.”

Della took the offered hand and let Lena pull her up. She tugged the teen into a hug. “Uuuuugh,” Lena groaned, but she returned the hug. “You people and your family thing. Come on.”

“You say ‘you people’ like there isn’t literally a legal document with your name listed as Lena Duck.”

“Yeah, yeah…”

She kept a hold on Della’s hand and pulled her through the row of mirrors — literally. “Wow.” Della looked around. “This is… bizarre.”

“It’s pretty fun once you get used to it.”

It was a relief to step outside. Della felt like a knot was loosened up in her chest. “Lena’s phone is going straight to voicemail,” they heard Webby say.

“Mom probably forgot to charge hers,” Louie said. “Figures. Tells us to pick up if she calls then doesn’t answer when  _ we _ call.”

“Maybe they’re still lost in the mirrors?”

“You know, you guys should really be more careful when you’re talking about someone,” Lena said as she pulled Della back into the real world. “You never know which sentient shadows are wandering around listening.”

The kids jumped, turning to look at the new arrivals. “What… were you guys doing?” Webby asked, bewildered. “Were you in the Shadow Realm?”

“Um, yeah, well…”

Lena turned to look at Della, shrugging helplessly. It was absolutely impossible for the woman to hide that she had been crying, and she was still shaking.

“Let’s… sit down and talk.”

Della felt terrible as they found a table to settle at, and everyone watched her expectantly. She was still playing with Lena’s necklace, and part of her thought she should give it back. But she needed something to occupy her hands while she ruined everyone’s day.

“Okay, so I… um… you know, I was trapped on the moon for ten years.”

“Wait, you were?” Louie asked, feigning surprise. Lena reached around Webby to shove him. Della appreciated it, though. Sarcasm was normal.

“And, you know, being alone for a long time can start to… get to you after a while. And you start to hate the sound of your voice. And your reflection in a mirror is the only other living thing you see every day, not counting the alien mite that wants to steal all your metal and probably kill you. So you start to hate looking at yourself.”

She’d wrapped the chain around her fingers. Whoops. “Mom, are you okay?” Dewey asked slowly. “I mean, like…”

“We kinda know you’re not okay in the general sense of things,” Huey picked up.

“You do?” Della blinked, surprised. The boys exchanged looks.

“Yeah? Your room is basically decorated to block out all light every second of the day. Lena’s the only other person we know who does that.”

“And you talk to yourself. A lot. And sometimes you get this really far off look like you’re not really…  _ here _ anymore.”

“And you were stuck on the moon alone for ten years. I think we can all just kind of assume from that you’re not okay.”

Della looked between them, mouth hanging open, then at Lena, who held her hands up. “I didn’t say a thing.”

“We just… thought it was one of those things we don’t talk about,” Huey said quietly. “Like we never ask Uncle Donald about the war.”

“And we couldn’t talk to Uncle Scrooge about you for the longest time,” Dewey added.

“And there’s like ten million things we can’t ask Lena about,” Louie concluded, ducking when Lena tried to hit him again. Della just stared, stunned, for several more moments before she lowered her head and covered her eyes with one hand, laughing quietly.

“I should’ve known. I need to give you guys more credit.” She took a deep breath, looking up again. “Mirrors kind of… freak me out. A lot. I wasn’t kidding when I said I started hating the sight of my own reflection. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but it is what it is.”

“So  _ why _ did you go into the mirror house?”

“Because I didn’t want any of you to think any less of me.” She laughed bitterly. “And it’s not your responsibility to keep track of me and what sets me off. You’re supposed to be kids.”

“You let Lena help you,” Dewey pointed out. It was hard to miss the slightly jealous lilt of his voice.

“Trust me, she  _ really _ didn’t,” Lena assured him. “I just happened to find her and I pulled her into the Shadow Realm. She didn’t notice for like five minutes.”

“Wait, was it that long?” Della blinked. “Great, losing more time. Never mind, the point is, none of you are responsible for taking care of me. Or worrying about me.”

“But we do that anyways.” Huey’s simple words caught Della off guard. “We worry about Uncle Donald and Uncle Scrooge too. And Webby. And Lena.”

“Have you  _ seen _ our lives?” Louie added. “You  _ and _ Uncle Donald got stuck on the moon! At different times!”

“Someone tries to kill Uncle Scrooge every other day. It’s usually Glomgold, but still.”

“Magica is still god knows where,” Lena added.

“The Beagle Boys have wanted to kill me since the day we met,” Webby piped up. “And they’re twenty minutes down the street.”

Della could only stare, mouth hanging open. She could feel tears prickling in her eyes, and wiped them quickly, taking a deep breath. “You’re right,” she finally conceded. “You’re all right. Clearly I’m not hiding anything—”

“Well, we didn’t know about the mirror thing,” Huey said. “That might’ve been something to mention instead of following us in there.”

“I know.” Della sighed. “And you’re right. Again. I’m sorry I’ve been trying to keep things from all of you. You deserve better. I’m trying to be better.”

“We know.” It was, surprisingly, Louie who responded. “We’re trying, too.”

Della took the first full breath she had managed since she’d seen herself in the fractured mirror. She held her arms out, and the boys hurried around the table to hug her tight. Webby half stood on the bench to hug Lena.

“You okay?” she whispered. It sounded like things had been really rough with Della. Lena knew her limits and knew how to take care of herself, but she wasn’t so heartless that she would leave Della panicking in the middle of the house of mirrors. She would have helped no matter how she was feeling.

“Yeah.” Lena smiled, leaning into the hug. “Maybe some decompressing later, though.”

“Sparring with Granny?”

“Why is that  _ always _ your suggestion?”

“Because it’s fun! And we’re getting a lot better at this fighting together thing.”

“Fiiiiiiiine.”

* * *

“God, Tea Time is trying to kill me.”

Webby giggled at Lena’s dramatics. “She wasn’t even trying to  _ hit _ you.”

“No, she just kept me jumping through shadows. That’s exhausting, you know.”

“Um… Lena?”

Lena pulled her head out from under her pillow, squinting against the light to see the blue blob sticking out of the hatch. “‘Sup, Dewford? Webby, can we  _ please _ turn off the light?”

“Is your head really hurting that bad?” Webby clapped, and the lights went out. Lena sighed in relief, scrubbing her eyes.

“Pulling other people into the Shadow Realm is hard. And Beakley put me through my paces. Anyways, Dewey, words.”

Dewey hoisted himself up to sit on the edge of the latch, legs dangling. “I… I want to know how to help Mom.” Lena blinked, bewildered. “I know I can’t like, do any of the shadow stuff, but there has to be something I can say or… or…”

Lena sighed quietly as his voice drifted off. “That’s not your job, Dewey.”

“I’m her son!”

“Which is  _ why _ it’s not your job. Worrying about her is one thing. Actively trying to take care of her is another. You’re twelve. And I’m not saying that as an insult. You’re not equipped to take care of someone who’s… messed up like that.”

“Webby helps you.”

Lena laughed bitterly. “Dude, I have a lot of issues, but Della is  _ way _ worse. And I’m not saying that to compare trauma. She is legitimately worse off than I am. She’s just way better at hiding and not dealing with it.”

“There has to be  _ something _ ,” Dewey insisted. He wasn’t going to let this go.

“Webby, are the painkillers down in the library?”

“Yeah. Want me to grab them?”

“No, I’ve got it.” Lena sighed, rolling out of her comfortable bed. She knew Dewey had good intentions, but she’d been so close to sleeping. “Move your tail feathers, kid.”

Dewey jumped down, and she followed, pausing to open the cabinet behind the ladder and finding the bottle of aspirin. “Are we going somewhere, or are you just trying to get rid of me?”

“I never got my necklace back from your mom. Let’s drop in.”

She dry-swallowed a couple aspirin and led Dewey out of the library, down to Della’s suite. “Yo,” she called as she knocked, letting herself in. Della was lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, glassy eyed. She snapped out of whatever trance she was in when she heard Lena.

“Oh, hey. I was going to find you later, sorry, just needed some time to… to…”

Her voice drifted off when she saw Dewey with Lena. “To?” Lena prompted. The look Della gave her could only be described as sullen and resentful.

“Unwind. Long day. Needed the dark for a while. What’s up, Dewey?”

“I, um…” He had no idea what Lena was planning.

“Dewey was asking how he can help you when you’re having a Thing.” That was the best way Lena had found to describe it. Panic attacks, PTSD, and other terms of like were still trying to incorporate their way into her vocabulary. She was getting better.

“I asked  _ you _ for a reason,” Dewey said, sounding highly annoyed. Lena grabbed her necklace from the nightstand, hooking it back around her neck.

“And I gave you my answer. But you didn’t like it, and it’s something you two should talk out anyways.” The looks they gave her were almost identical; no doubting that relation. “I’m happy to help, but I’m not going to be your go-between. Talk it out. Be honest. I’m going back to my own dark room.”

“Wait, can I just ask one question?” Dewey piped up. Lena stopped, looking back and shrugging. Della didn’t say anything, so Dewey took that as the go ahead. “Why do you guys… do this?” He waved his hand around the room. “I mean, all the dark. We all know it’s a thing, but like… wouldn’t you be afraid of the dark after all the time you spent in it?”

Lena tugged absentmindedly at her pendant. “It’s easier to not see my shadow when I wake up. And it’s comfortable. Familiar, ya know?”

“The light still hurts my eyes sometimes,” Della admitted, sighing. “Especially if I spend all day outside. I spent all that time in the dark, I guess my eyes just got used to it.”

“Then why do you take us out? Like, adventures are one thing, but the amusement park? The water park?”

“Because I want to spend time with you.” Della finally looked at him. “I love adventures, I love sharing those experiences with all of you, but I like going out and doing things that aren’t life threatening — although that roller coaster was questionable. I like taking you guys to places you want to go. I want to share  _ that _ with you, too. I have a lot of time to make up for. And I swear, it’s not usually this bad. I think the mirror house just put things over the edge.”

Dewey went to sit with his mother, and Lena turned, happy to leave them to their talk. She and her head had a date with a pillow.


	5. Old Habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Lena thinks things were easier with Magica

“Do you ever wish you were still on the moon?”

Della looked up from her book. It was a little after three a.m. — Lena had come in around midnight, clearly sleep deprived, and flopped onto Della’s bed. Della was just getting back from spending the night with Donald, and hadn’t been ready to sleep yet anyways. So she took a shower, got her book, and settled in her chair, waiting for Lena to find her voice.

“I… can’t say I do, no,” she said slowly, already knowing that wasn’t  _ exactly _ the answer Lena wanted. “It was kind of an adventure for the first week or so but it got pretty boring after awhile. And I wanted to get back to my family.” Lena nodded slowly, not looking away from the ceiling. “Do you… miss being a shadow?”

“No…” The answer was slow, but honest. “Sometimes I think maybe everyone was better off when I was a shadow, but I don’t want to go back to that.”

She fell silent for a moment, frowning deeply. Della could tell there was more, but she didn’t push. She had waited for three hours, after all. What was another twenty minutes?

“Sometimes I… I miss Magica.”

Della hadn’t expected that. She managed to school her expression into something that wasn’t too stunned, in case Lena looked at her. “Do you?”

“I… kind of?” Lena closed her eyes, sighing. “It was easier with Magica. I mean, it wasn’t, because it was Magica, but at least I always knew what to do more or less. My life had a  _ point _ . Now I just feel like… I don’t know. Like I don’t have a reason to exist.”

“That’s pretty common,” Della pointed out gently. “No one is born with a purpose. They have to find one.”

“But I wasn’t  _ born _ .” Lena covered her eyes, sighing. “I was created, and I  _ did _ have a purpose. And it wasn’t a great one, and Magica was terrible, but at least I… had something.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying I want to go back to Magica or anything…”

“I know,” Della assured her. “I… kind of get it. I spent ten years doing nothing but trying to get back to my kids, and now I’m here and it’s like… what next? Bonding with the boys isn’t quite the same as building a rocket. That was  _ simple _ compared to readjusting to life here. But I’d still rather be here than on the moon chewing black licorice bubble gum.”

Lena gagged slightly. “That sounds  _ terrible _ .”

“You don’t even know the half of it.” Della chuckled. “I swear, sometimes I can still taste it.”

Lena sat up a bit, smiling despite herself. “I still try to walk through walls sometimes. And check my shadow.”

“I’ve noticed the shadow thing.” And the wall thing, but they all tried to be polite and pretend they didn’t see it happen. “Old habits die hard, right?”

“That implies they eventually die at all,” Lena said bitterly. Della grinned, pointing to her jacket, which was hanging up near the door.

“Go check my pockets.”

“Why—?”

“Just do it.”

Lena made a face, but got off the bed, heading across the suite to rummage through Della’s jacket pockets. “There’s nothing here,” she finally said, coming up empty-handed.

“Exactly. It’s taken me nearly three months, but I finally stopped carrying around the freaking Oxy-Chew. I don’t even remember taking any from the rocket but apparently I did because every single time I reached into my pocket I found some. Finally I started just checking my pockets in the morning before I left to make sure I didn’t have any on me, and if I did, I’d throw it away outside of my suite so I couldn’t find it again. It takes forever, but old habits actually  _ do _ die.”

Lena returned to the bed, flopping back to stare at the ceiling once more, smiling at the glowy stars on Della’s ceiling. Webby had the same ones in the library. “So you stopped carrying around super science-y oxygen providing bubble gum through pure willpower?”

“Well… willpower and some help from Donald,” Della admitted, rubbing the back of her head. “I never actually  _ told _ him, but he started checking my pockets too and getting rid of any he found. I swear it was like the stuff bred or something. I mean, I had a  _ lot _ of it, the rocket was packed full just in case and one stick of the stuff could last for months, but I never realized how many weird places I kept it.”

“So I just need willpower and a weird twin.”

“I think a Webby will do.” Della smiled. “Have you talked to her about any of this?”

“God, no.” Lena shuddered. “I can’t even imagine how she’d react if I told her I miss  _ Magica _ . She worries about me enough as it is.”

“Because you’re her friend,” Della reminded her. “That’s what friends are for. And family. We worry about you. And you know Webby would want to help if she knew.”

“Yeah, of course she’d want to help. But that’s not her job. I don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“I’m sure Webby knows her limits. And you’ve got me, too,” Della added with a small smile. Lena sat up again to look at her, shoulders falling as if she were releasing a held breath.

“You don’t think I’m crazy?” Anxiety rang in her voice. Della shook her head.

“No, Lena. I don’t think you’re crazy.” She  _ did _ think Magica de Spell would be lucky if she never met anyone in this family again, because the list of reasons to beat her senseless grew every time Della talked to Lena. But that was entirely beside the point. “And I doubt Webby would think you are.”

“Sure,” Lena murmured. Della was pretty sure Lena didn’t believe her.

“Hey.” She threw a small pillow at Lena, who wasn’t quick enough to dodge. “Get out of your head for a minute. Put yourself in Webby’s shoes. Think about all that she’s does for you.”  _ Think about how much she loves you _ . Della knew better than to say that out-loud, however. “She’s not going to turn on you now. No one is.”

Lena closed her eyes, sighing deeply. “Old habits die slow and painful deaths?”

“Slow and painful, but we’re here to help you kill it.” That got Della a small smile. “Do you believe me?”

“I’m trying,” Lena admitted. “Does that count?”

“It counts for everything.”

“Cool.” The teen was quiet for a moment before suddenly grabbing the pillow and whipping it at Della. She was surprisingly fast; Della didn’t have time to duck.

“Hey!”

“You started it.”

Lena was smirking; Della couldn’t find it in herself to even pretend to be cross. Instead, she grabbed the pillow and threw it again. This time Lena dodged, quickly grabbing it again and rearing to send it back, this time encasing it in pink energy.

“Cheater!” Della grabbed another pillow to protect herself from the magically enhanced projectile. She grabbed that pillow and looked back at Lena, armed with two and ready to go…

Only to see Lena with four pillows hovering around her.

“Aw, phooey.”


	6. Check Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because you can't just put a magic stone in someone's chest and call it a day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel of sorts to Chapter 16 of Finding Her Place: Divine Intervention. https://archiveofourown.org/works/19045090/chapters/48836711 It really won't make much sense without it.

“Watch out!”

“Ah!” Della jumped back as a lightning bolt hit the ground right in front of him. She automatically shoved Webby and Lena behind her. “Watch it! I’ve got a metal leg, you know!”

“No descendant of the McDucks shall  _ ever _ —!”

“We’re not related Scrooge!” Let it be known that Lena was never afraid to stand up to a god. That brought Zeus up short.

“No  _ acquaintance  _ of McDuck’s—!”

Selene appeared in front of them, rolling her eyes. “Ignore him, ignore him, come on,” she sighed, beckoning Della and the girls forward. Lena hadn’t gotten to see much of Ithaquack the last time she was here, and she was kind of curious to see what a mythical island looked like. But Zeus was still trying to hurl thunderbolts at them, and Della had a point about her leg.

“He’s so dramatic.” Selene shook her head as she opened the temple to let them straight into her room.

“What’s he got against Scrooge, anyways?”

“If I had several centuries I don’t think I could explain the whole thing in details that would make any sense.” Selene shook her head, pinching the space between her eyes, then smiled. “But that’s not what we’re here for! Come on, sit, tell me about things.”

“Are you a therapist now?” Lena asked dryly.

“Are you  _ in _ therapy?”

“No.” Not that Scrooge hadn’t suggested it. And Della. And Donald. And Beakley. And Della and Donald again. But Lena was still pretty sure no therapist was equipped to handle her.

“Then yes, I’m a therapist now.” Selene smiled brightly. “Have you noticed any difference with the moonstone?”

Lena tugged absentmindedly at the ring hanging off her neck, next to the pendant Della had given her for Christmas. She had long since broken the original chain by tugging too hard. Scrooge had been kind enough to supply whatever he used for his dime as a replacement.

Lena sat on the floor, Webby joining her. “I… think so? I mean, I’ve felt a little better. Not perfect or one-hundred percent or anything…”

“And I told you fixing the amulet wouldn’t fix all your problems,” Selene reminded her gently.

“I know.” Lena sighed. “I’ve noticed some smaller things, though. Mostly related to my magic.”

“Do tell.”

Lena took a deep breath, still fiddling. “I’m not as… scared of it as I used to be? I don’t know if scared is really the right word. I don’t like magic, I’ve never liked magic, and this power comes from  _ her _ …” Her voice drifted off for a moment. Webby frowned, squeezing her arm gently. “Something about it has always felt wrong, like static in my head. But it’s… getting better. Like someone turned down the volume. And it feels more like  _ my _ magic than just something I got from Magica.”

“All sounds better to me.” Selene smiled brightly. Della was leaning against a nearby wall, watching them. She knew what was coming — they all did — and she knew Selene was putting it off.

“She hasn’t had as many nightmares either,” Webby piped up, glad to contribute something. “Or if she does, they’re not as bad.”

“Yup, haven’t woken up screaming in two whole weeks,” Lena said dryly. “New record.”

“Any progress is good progress. And sleep is good for you. Being well rested makes it easier to deal with things when you’re awake.”

Lena raised an eyebrow at the goddess. “You should start charging Scrooge for therapy.”

Selene laughed. “It  _ would _ be funny to see the look on his face. But I don’t think I’m ready for him to start another feud with my father.”

“You think he’d get into a fight with Zeus over money?”

“You think he  _ wouldn’t _ ?” Lena had to give her that one. “Any  _ bad _ side effects?”

“Not… that I can think of?” Lena looked questioningly at Webby, who shook her head.

“You’ve been happier. Like… you’re not as worried about everything as you used to be.” She didn’t constantly look like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She wasn’t always looking around and checking shadows. They’d even left the blackout curtains open by accident one night, and she’d been fine in the morning.

“Stabler magic, happy, less anxious.” Selene checked things off on her fingers as she spoke. “That all sounds pretty good to me, all things considered. I assume you’ve been working on some of this as well and not just depending completely on the moonstone?”

“Yeah — I mean, I’m trying. I’ve been practicing more with the magic. I think it’s kind of changing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Lena looked around, finding a nearby vase. Her glowed as she held it out, but it wasn’t the usual vibrant purple-pink. The same color wrapped around the vase, raising it into the air for a moment.

“That is… interesting.” Selene stood, going to inspect the hovering vase. “Does it feel any weaker?”

“Not really. I feel like I can control it more, honestly.”

“Hm. I knew the moonstone would have an effect on your magic… but it really does seem like you’re starting to make it your own. Magica will be quite disappointed if she ever tries to come back for the amulet.” There was a note of smug amusement in her tone. Her hatred for Magica de Spell was no secret. Knowing that the witch was powerless was a nice thought. Knowing she was helping to change the magic that Magica had been so proud of?  _ That _ made Selene positively gleeful.

Lena set the vase down, letting out a long a breath and leaning slightly on Webby while she waited for the room to stop spinning. Magic still took a lot out of her. She really hoped that would get better with time.

Selene gave her a moment to recover as she sat in front of the girls again. There wasn’t really any other way to put it off now. “Ready?” She asked gently. Lena grimaced, but nodded, and Della crossed the room, putting a hand on Webby’s shoulder. They both knew Selene wouldn’t hurt Lena, but Webby’s default reaction to anything was  _ protect Lena _ . And sometimes that overrode basic knowledge.

Lena’s chest started to glow; she shuddered slightly as the amulet slid out smoothly, hovering in the air between her and Selene. Webby, as expected, went tense, and Della tightened her grip.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, seeing the warring expressions on Webby’s face. Selene turned the amulet with a wave of her hand, inspecting it for a long moment.

“The moonstone seems to have settled in, that’s good. It almost looks like it’s a natural part of the amulet.” She reached out to trace one of the filled cracks. The moonstone had almost blended into the amulet, like it was seeping into the Sumerian stone. That might have explained the slight change in Lena’s magic. That wasn’t a bad thing. Shadow magic wasn’t inherently evil, but it was very complicated. And Lena had a strong will, but she was also so fragile at times… 

“I… I have a question.”

“Hm?” Selene looked up, catching Lena’s eye. “All right, one minute…”

She waved her hand again, and in a burst of white light, the amulet was back inside Lena where it belonged. Webby let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and she threw herself at Lena as soon as Della let her go, hugging her tight. Lena brought one arm up to rub Webby’s back while she spoke.

“I just… would it ever be possible for me to live without the amulet? I don’t… think I’m ever going to really grow up. Not like everyone else. I’ve looked like this for fifteen years.”

Oh, that was a complicated question. “I’m not sure,” Selene admitted. “I’d have to look more into exactly how Magica created you, and work from there.”

Lena’s eyes fell to the ground, and she nodded. “Hey, you know we still love you no matter what,” Della said, gathering Lena and Webby into a hug.

“I know…”

“I’ll do some research,” Selene promised. Lena was a sweet kid, and she deserved as normal of a life as she could possibly get. “Don’t call it quits before I even get a chance to start.”

Lena nodded. “Okay. I appreciate it.”

Selene ruffled her hair; Lena made a half attempt at pulling away and a noise of contempt. “You messed it up,” she grumbled, patting her hair.

“Why don’t you guys go find a mirror?” Selene suggested, standing up. “Explore the island a bit. It’s always been straight to business when you guys are here.”

“Is Zeus done throwing lightning bolts?” Webby asked. Selene hesitated, then shrugged.

“Can’t hurt to look.”

The girls exchanged looks, then grinned and jumped up, running out of the room. Selene looked at Della, who smiled sheepishly in return.

“Your turn.”

“Lena’s right — you really should start charging.”

* * *

Webby and Lena were both exhausted by the time Della finally left the temple; there were grumbles and stifled yawns as they made their way back to the plane, without a hail of lightning bolts this time. Webby fell asleep the moment they were in the air, curled up in her seat. But Della knew Lena would never sleep on a flight.

“Still awake, kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool, come co-pilot with me.”

“Um, what?” Lena sounded baffled.

“You need to get over your fear of flying eventually. It’s like, the main mode of transportation in this family.”

“That would involve me getting unbuckled and walking over to you.”

“Yeah, that’s generally how changing your seat works.” Della smiled, knowing better than to look away. “C’mon, the view is awesome from here.”

There was a long moment of silence, then a  _ click _ as Lena undid her seatbelt and  _ slowly _ sidled up to the empty chair next to Della. She immediately sat and buckled in again. “See?” Della nodded forward. The sun was starting to set, painting the sky in shades of yellow and orange and pink.

“Okay, yeah, it’s pretty nice,” Lena admitted, pressing against her seat. Well. One step at a time, Della supposed. “Hey… Della?”

“Hm?”

“Did you… really mean it when you said you’d love me no matter what?”

“Of course I did. I adopted you, didn’t I?”

“I know, but… magic is weird. It can turn you into something you never were before, or something you never wanted to be.”

“If you go the route of Magica, I’ll drag you back to the mansion and tie you to a chair until you’ve come to your senses. And I’m sure Webby would be more than happy to help me.”

“Everyone’s going to age and die eventually. What do I do when everyone is gone?”

“Stop thinking about that, first of all,” Della said firmly. “We have good genetics in this family, we might just live forever, you never know. And even if we don’t… I think you’re strong enough to make it on your own. Or you will be by that point.”

“Really?” Lena sounded doubtful.

“Really. You’re strong, and you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. I know you would never let magic corrupt you.”

“You’ve got a lot of faith in me.”

“You’ve never given be a reason to think I shouldn’t.”

Lena looked at Della for a moment, then smiled. It was a small smile, but it was there. “Thanks.”

It was a heavily loaded word, filled with so many things — not just for the reassurance or the faith, but for everything Della had done, really. Della just smiled.

“Nothing to thank me for, kid.”


	7. Video Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Della needs a push.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... is depressing. There's a LOT of talk about Della and her time on the moon, and all the ways that messed her up so.... be warned.
> 
> (Shout to the Weblena server You Beautiful Idiot for the initial inspiration. Y'all only have yourselves to blame.)

“So like… am I supposed to say something? People usually say like log date… whatever whatever at the beginning of these things…”

Della sighed, flopping back on her bed and staring at the ceiling. Scrooge had been good about not bothering her, and had even admitted he’d left her alone because he thought she could deal with things on her own.

Ignoring it was probably not an option anymore.

_“What were you doin’?” Scrooge demanded as he approached his niece. Huey and Louie were running over to help Dewey and Webby out of the pit they had nearly fallen into. Della hunched up a bit, looking away._

_“I… I don’t know. I had them, I thought I had them, but everything was shaking, and it went dark, and…”_

_She didn’t want to say it had reminded her of her _many_ fights with the moon mite. But it had. Scrooge’s eyes flicked to the kids, then back to Della; his expression softened slightly._

_“Do I need to get Launchpad out here?”_

_“No,” Della said quickly. “No, I can fly. I’m fine. I’m fine_.”

She was _not_ fine, and they both knew it. Scrooge had dragged her into his office as soon as they were home and gave her an ultimatum — find a _healthy_ coping habit within a month, or go to therapy. The internet was surprisingly helpful when it came to ideas about how to deal with trauma. The idea of _vlogging_, despite the absolutely stupid name, had appealed to Della the most. She liked talking, after all. And it didn’t require much work apart from getting a video camera. She liked it.

Until she got the actual camera in her hands and tried to talk. She closed her eyes, letting out a long breath. It had been three days, and she already felt hopeless. How was this even her? She never gave up. She had survived on the moon for _ten years_, but she couldn’t deal with emotions?

_Come on, Della_…

A knock shook her out of her thoughts, and she sat up. It was late, and there was really one person who could be on the other side of it. The one person under eighteen who _hadn’t_ come around yet to tell her she hadn’t done anything wrong.

_Probably because I almost killed Webby_.

She shook her head, heading for the door. A piece of paper had been slid under the door; she knelt to pick it up. It was a note, scrawled in familiar handwriting.

_Do you want ‘it’s not your fault’ or the harsh truth?_

Underneath it was a small doodle of Lena’s face, two lines extending out to different versions of Della’s face — one looked very sad. The other was smiling. Della laughed, opening the door to see the smug teenager on the other side.

“You’re the worst.”

“No, I’m honest,” Lena replied with a small smile. Della stepped aside to let her in. “To be fair, it’s _not_ your fault. Not completely.”

“Yeah, I just almost killed Dewey and Webby. No big deal.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. “You know what Beakley says about self pity?”

“That it’s useless and if I’m going to complain about my problems I might as well do something about it?” Della smiled tiredly. “Yeah, I’ve heard it before.”

“Cool.” Lena flopped onto the bed, jumping slightly when she almost sat on the camera. “Whoops, sorry. What’s this?”

“Never mind. You were saying it’s not completely my fault?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it was a flashback, right?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Not something you can really help, then.” Lena shrugged, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “On the other hand, if you went to therapy or something…”

“Hey, I don’t see you running off to get your head shrunk,” Della said, half teasingly. This was, she had to admit, something that made Lena better to talk to than anyone else. They shared trauma and the same, morbid sense of humor. And it was hard to offend or upset the teen.

“Yeah, but I’ve got my journal,” Lena countered without missing a beat. “It doesn’t fix _everything_, but having somewhere to vent things without worrying what everyone else thinks helps. And, you know… I talk to other people sometimes.”

“Yeah, that seems to be my weakness,” Della muttered, going to sit with Lena. There was a sign of defeat in the way her shoulders sagged. “Uncle Scrooge is threatening to force me into therapy if I can’t figure things out on my own.”

“Harsh.”

“I almost killed Webby and Dewey. I think it’s warranted.” Della rested her head in her hands. Silence fell for a moment; then came the sound of her own voice. Her head snapped up, and she saw Lena playing back her recording. “Hey!”

“Uh uh!” Lena quickly tossed the camera into the air and held it up there with magic as Della dove for her. “What were you trying to do?”

“I just thought… everyone keeps saying to talk about things, so I thought maybe I could just, you know, talk to a camera. But I can’t even talk to myself about it.”

Lena watched her for a moment, then scooted further onto the bed and crossed her legs under herself, lowering the camera back to her hands and holding it up to Della. “What’s your name?”

“What?” Della looked up, blinking.

“What’s your name? Come on, you can answer that.”

“I… Della. Della Duck.”

“Cool. Do you have any siblings?”

“Lena, what’re you—”

“Just answer me.” Lena’s voice wasn’t harsh or pushy, but she was obviously trying to nudge Della into something.

“I have one brother. A twin. His name is Donald.”

“Any other family?”

“Just my uncle, Scrooge McDuck. My parents died in a car crash when Donald and I were kids.”

Lena blinked, thrown off for a moment. She hadn’t known that. “Kids?”

“Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They’re almost twelve. It’s the first time I’ll be able to celebrate their birthday with them.”

“Where were you before that?”

Della went silent for a moment, just looking at Lena. “Della?” Lena prompted her. She sighed.

“I was stuck on the moon. I stole a rocket right before they hatched… and I crashed when I ran into a freak cosmic storm. And I was stuck there. For ten years.”

“What happened to your leg?”

Again, Della hesitated. Lena already knew the story. She still hated talking about it. “I… when I crashed, part of the rocket fell on my leg.” She swallowed hard. “I was stuck. Even if I had been able to move it, I knew the leg was a loss. So…”

“So…?”

Della shuddered, ducking her head. “What’s the point of this?”

“Just keep going.”

Deep breath. She could do this. “I cut it off. There was a first aid kit in the rocket, but of course I couldn’t get to it, so I just used part of spacesuit to, ya know, wrap it up until I could move to find it.”

“And then what happened?”

“Lena—”

“What happened?”

Deep breath. Della clenched her shaking hands into fists. “Well, once I stopped crying and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to pass out, I found the first aid kit, cleaned it up a bit better, and _then_ I passed out.”

“That all sounds pretty terrible.”

“Yeah.” Della laughed humorlessly. “It sucked. It took me three months to recover and build this thing.” She tapped her prosthetic leg. “Then I started building up my homebase and trying to learn how to rebuild the rocket.”

“And you were trapped there for ten years?”

“Yup. Just me, myself, and I. Well, there were aliens too, but their leader just sort of let me suffer in isolation until it benefited him to ‘find me’.”

“Ten years is a long time to be alone and completely isolated.”

“You’re telling me.” Della scrubbed her eyes. “I started talking to myself. A lot. Spent a lot of time learning how to rebuild the rocket and then doing that. Read and build, sleep. Oh, and fight the moon mite that kept trying to steal my metal.”

“And — wait, what?” Lena blinked, bewildered.

“The moon mite is another thing entirely, don’t worry about it.”

“Right. So all you did was read, build, and sleep?”

“Pretty much. Sometimes I needed to take a break from reading but I wasn’t tired, and there isn’t exactly a _lot_ to do on the moon. And you get tired of the sound of your own voice after a while. And do you know how much you really depend on seeing other people? Nobody to talk to, no one to see except for the one picture I had of my boys — while they were in their eggs, and then my own rendition of them on the back. They didn’t really come out well.”

“So all you had was yourself and a bad drawing?”

“Yup. My own voice, and a silent drawing.” She shuddered. “I spent three weeks staring at my reflection once. I started out talking to myself, which somehow made it less creepy. But then I stopped talking and just… stared. For three weeks.”

She couldn’t hide her shaking anymore. She leaned over, elbows on her knees as she tried to keep breathing deeply. “What was that like?” Lena asked. Della wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream or cry, not that it mattered. Her ability to do either was compromised.

“Can we stop—”

“No.” Lena’s voice was firm. “If you stop, you’re never going to start again. Tell me about staring at your reflection for three weeks.”

Deep breath. Deep breath. “I… I only know it was three weeks because I rigged up this time tracking thing — it’s _really_ hard to keep track of time on the moon, especially when you keep losing consciousness because of head trauma and blood loss. So I had to do a lot of guessing at first. Anyways the tracker was constantly ticking off seconds, and there are eighty-six thousand and four hundred seconds in a day. When I finally stopped staring and looking at the tracker again, I’d lost about one million, eight hundred and fourteen thousand, four hundred seconds, give or take a few.” Deep breath. “So, three weeks. It didn’t even feel like I was looking at myself anymore. It was just this… stranger in the mirror staring at back at me. I guess kind of an out of body experience? I’m not sure. I didn’t recognize her, though. I knew what I looked like — I had that photo with Donald and Scrooge and the eggs. The person staring back at me was… her hair was too long and she looked too tired and so… so defeated. Like she was ready to give up. That’s not me.” She wrapped her arms tight around herself, squeezing her eyes shut. “That’s not me. I don’t give up. It was _so lonely_ and so _hard_ sometimes but I… I wanted to get home to my family. To my boys. I wouldn’t _give up_.”

She paused, taking another breath. Lena didn’t push this time, but the words still came out. “The first night I was back, I… I found my suite. Scrooge had pretty much left it the same. I got to _shower_, and put on clean clothes, and I felt great. I just wanted to cut my hair. I found a pair of scissors, and I wasn’t really paying attention while I was working, which was stupid, but it came out all right. Then I… I looked at my reflection, and I saw _her_. That person who was just too tired and just wanted to give up. And I freaked out because how had she gotten here? I was _home_. She should have still been on the moon! So I did the only thing that made sense at the time. I stabbed the mirror with the scissors.”

“You… stabbed…?”

“The mirror with the scissors, yeah.” Deep breath. “I covered it for a while, then just took it down. I couldn’t look at myself. I literally could not look at myself in the mirror. And I hate the dark but I hate the light more and the dark is easier to hide in so I covered up my windows and sometimes I just sit in here completely silent because everything outside is overwhelming and sometimes I stare at the ceiling for too long and start to think I’m _back there_ and I still measure time in seconds! We’ve been talking for almost six-hundred seconds!”

Lena lowered her eyes quickly to check the recording time. Nine minutes and fifty seconds. “And I still _count_ the seconds because it’s important because, there are certain things that need to be done at certain times, because I need to know how long I’ve spent reading or searching for parts or… or…”

Her voice drifted off as she realized she was talking in present tense. Like she was still on the moon reading or searching for parts. Like she was about turn around to check the timer and see if she’d gone too far off the mark.

“And sometimes I just stare at the darkness and wonder if I ever really left the moon,” she finished in a whisper, tangling her fingers in her hair as she finally broke. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she sobbed and hiccoughed, trying to catch her breath. Lena stopped the recording, closed the camera, and put it aside, crawling over to Della and hugging her as tight as she could.

This was why she had never told the triplets, or Webby, anything about Della’s issues. This was why hadn’t been willing to tell Dewey anything and had redirected him to Della instead. Because he wasn’t equipped to handle it. _No one_ was equipped to handle this. Scrooge could throw around all the money he wanted but he would never find someone who could actually _help_. Lena sure as hell didn’t know what she was doing. She could relate to an extent, but there was a point where Della’s experiences just went beyond anything Lena could help with. The only thing she knew for sure was that Della had never talked in depth about any of this. And even Lena knew that bottling it all up was just going to be a disaster in the end.

Now all she could do was hug Della tight, because Della had spent ten years isolated from _everything_, never able to reach out or touch another person. And that had driven Lena half out of her mind in six months. She couldn’t imagine ten _years_.

Della felt like she was falling apart. Every single wall she had put up around these memories was crumbling, and she wasn’t entirely sure how to handle it. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that was what Lena had been doing — forcing her to talk, to face these memories. To stop hiding. To do what everyone had forced Lena to do. _Talk_.

It took a good while for Della to calm down enough to speak again. Lena didn’t say anything the entire time; she just held Della close, making sure not waver at all. She couldn’t let Della know anything she’d said had shaken her.

The sobs eventually died down to sniffles, and Della slowly relaxed, swiping at her eyes. The tears weren’t going away any time soon.

“Thanks, kid,” she whispered after another moment.

“For what? Making you cry?” There was a gentle, soft laugh in Lena’s voice. Della smiled humorlessly.

“For making me talk.”

Lena rearranged herself slightly to sit beside Della; Della pulled into a side hug, resting her cheek on the teen’s head. “Did it help?”

“No.” Della laughed. “But I’m sure it will eventually. This was at least sort of a step in the right direction. I think.”

“From everything I know about trauma, and all the things people make you do to get over it, you do seem to be on the right track.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Boy are you screwed.”

Della nudged Lena gently. “Nah. I trust you.” Her eyes flicked to the clock. It was almost midnight. “You should go to bed.”

“You gonna be okay?”

“No.” There was no point in hiding it. “But I’ll live for tonight. I’ll have to see what tomorrow brings before I judge.”

“Fair.” Lena gave her one last hug. “Also, if you tell anyone I’ve gone soft—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll end me.” Della laughed, an honest laugh this time, pushing Lena off the bed. “Don’t worry, your edgy teenage reputation is safe.”

“Good.” Lena looked over her over, crossing her arms. “You should get some sleep.”

“Who’s the adult here?” Della teased, waving a hand at the door. “Go on.”

“Going. G’night Della.”

“Night, Lena.”

She stared at the door for around five minutes (_Don’t say three-hundred seconds, don’t say three-hundred seconds_) after Lena left, before slowly reaching for the camera and standing up, taking a deep breath.

_Talk_.

It was late. But there were enough insomniacs in this family that Donald wasn’t entirely surprised when someone knocked the kitchen door. He _was_ surprised to find his sister waiting for on the other side, though.

“Since when do you knock?” he asked dumbly even as he looked her over. She was tired, and she had been crying. He was already winding up to go punch whoever had upset her (Scrooge, probably). “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I mean, everything, but nothing immediate.” She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand again, trying to smile. Donald tilted his head when he saw the camera in her other hand.

“What’s that?”

“Some uh… let’s call it tough love via Lena. You got a few minutes?”

Donald looked her up and down for another moment before stepping forward and hugging her tight. “I’ve got all night,” he murmured. Della put all her strength into her return hug.

“And something good to drink? That might be necessary, too.”

“I’m sure I can find something.”


	8. Jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Della meets a new parenting obstacle - jealousy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it's been a hot minute hasn't it? Sorry about that. You all know what's going on, I've just been exhausted. Have 4000 words that I've been writing for like six months to make up for it?

Dewey didn’t want to resent Lena. He _didn’t _resent Lena. Not really.

But after ten years of being _gone_, he had sort of expected himself and his brothers to be the center of their mother’s world. She had missed them, hadn’t she? All she had wanted was to get back home to them.

And somehow, she’d allowed Lena to attach herself to her. It was bad enough feeling like he had to compete with his brothers, but now with the two of them _and_ a teenager? It was so… unfair. It bothered him every time he saw Lena and Della talking, or when he went to visit and Lena was just casually lying in the second bed Della had put in (for Lena, he assumed bitterly), whether Della was there or not. Like she lived there. She had already taken over Webby’s room. What did she need Della’s for as well?

“She and Della just sort of bonded over related trauma,” Webby had said with a shrug when Dewey had asked. “Lena has a lot of stuff she can’t tell me; even if she tries, I just… don’t understand it. They can relate to each other.”

“And it doesn’t _bother_ you?”

“It did,” Webby admitted. “It felt like Lena cared more about Della than she did me. But she just needed more time. She tries to talk to me more now. It’s all really complicated.”

Dewey tried to keep that in mind — that Della and Lena just shared similar experiences, that they talked to each other because they understood each other. And it wasn’t Della didn’t spend plenty of her time with the boys — she played games with Huey, took Dewey out for adventures (both mundane and life threatening), and spent hours just talking to Louie about things Dewey probably didn’t want to know about. She even talked over traps and adventure ideas with Webby. It wasn’t like Lena got any _special_ treatment.

It was hard to pinpoint why exactly it bothered him.

“Come on Huey, there you go — woo!” Della pumped her arms in victory offering a hand to Huey, who grinned as he high-fived her. “Back to the farm for the rest of the night?”

“Yes, please.”

“If you want a fancy farming simulator, just buy one on your phone,” Louie said, bored. He was sitting at the other end of the couch, tapping away on his own phone.

“You can get farming simulators on your phone?”

“And other games.”

“Wait you can get _games_ on your phone?” Della straightened up, stunned. “Seriously?”

“Moooooooooooom.” The boys groaned. She stuck her tongue out at them.

“When I left I had my trusty flip-phone. All of this smartphone nonsense is gibberish to me.”

“Do you need help with your phone?” Dewey asked, looking over his shoulder at his mother, hopeful for something to do with her.

“Nah, Lena helped me set it up and walked me through the basics.” Dewey frowned, looking away. “So what games can I get? Are there any adventures games? Wait, sorry, I need to help Huey with the farm, phone games later.”

“There’s another farming simulator I really like,” Huey said as he tapped away. “Not as adventurous, but it’s peaceful. As long as I ignore all the monsters, which is pretty easy. I can just farm year round.”

“You’ll have to show me that one when we’re done.” It sounded not at all like something Della would enjoy, but it made Huey happy, so she could at least watch him play for a little while.

“Is that the one you’ve put like… two-hundred hours into?”

“Yes. It’s a good game.”

“Did you ever get a boyfriend or a girlfriend or anything?” Dewey asked curiously. It did seem like a weirdly interesting game. He wanted to try it out.

“Nah, I don’t pay much attention to the community. With all the mods I have installed, I really don’t have to. I can get everything I need without leaving my farm.”

“So you have _no friends_ in town?”

“No but I have a thriving farm and that’s all that matters.”

“Hey, we should go to laser tag tonight,” Dewey spoke up suddenly. “Just the four of us. It’d be fun.”

“I’d be down for that,” Louie said distantly.

“I call red team!” That was Huey, of course. Della gave them all a small, gentle smile.

“I’ve… actually got plans with Lena tonight. What about tomorrow night? We can go early and spend hours there.”

Huey and Louie made noises of agreement, and Dewey struggled not to scowl. “Why can’t _Lena_ wait?”

Della looked down at her son, surprised. “What?”

“You’re ditching spending time with _us_ to hang out for _Lena_. Why? So she can tell you how _terrible_ her life is?”

“Dewey—”

“Everything that happened to her is her fault anyways, and yeah, fine, I get it, she’s messed up, big deal. She’s not your kid. She’s not even a member of this family!”

Dead silence fell over the room. Huey and Louie just stared at their brother, who was scowling at their equally stunned mother. “Dewey, that’s… that’s not…”

“Uuuuuuh.” Louie was looking over the back of the couch. Everyone turned to follow his gaze — and there were Webby and Lena. Webby’s mouth was hanging open, while Lena’s expression was completely blank. And Dewey knew he had messed up. _Bad_.

Lena whipped around, taking off. They heard the mansion doors open and close, the creaks echoing in the silence.

“What—” Dewey winced as Webby stormed into the room, “is—” her fist was ready, and Dewey knew there was no escaping this, “_wrong with you_?”

At least she only punch his shoulder. He rubbed the spot, looking to his brothers for help and finding none. “I’m not… I didn’t mean it like that,” he stuttered. “I just — don’t you guys feel like she’s _always_ hanging around with Lena?”

“Yeah, at _night_. No offense Mom, but I’m not down for three a.m. gaming sessions.”

“No, you three sleep as much as you can.” Della focused on Dewey. “Do _you_ feel that way?”

“No.” Della raised an eyebrow. “Sorta. I thought you’d want to spend more time with us…”

“You mean more time with _you_.” Huey shut down the game, giving Dewey a Look. “Classic Dewey strikes again.”

“It’s not like that!”

“Yeah, it is! It’s looking for Mom all over again, you kept everything from us because you just wanted to feel special—”

“Okay, okay!” Della called over Huey, trying to bring some peace to the situation. Webby shot Dewey one last scowl before stalking off.

“I’m going to find Lena.”

“Do you want—”

“No.”

Dewey winced. That was going to be a hard one to fix. Della watched Webby go, then looked at Huey and Louie. “Do you two feel like I don’t spend enough time with you?” It was honest question. She had really thought she was doing well with splitting her time. Louie shrugged.

“We’re spending time together right now, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Huey piped up. “It doesn’t _always_ have to be life or death adventures.”

“I prefer when it isn’t.”

Della looked back at Dewey, honestly confused. “But you don’t feel the same.”

“I…” Dewey rubbed the back of his head, looking away. “You came back and everything was awesome, and then Lena came back and… I don’t hate her, I really don’t—”

“You haven’t forgiven her.” It wasn’t a question. And the way he grimaced made it pretty obvious. “Huey, Louie, can you guys…?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re out.”

They both looked relieved to escape. Della turned her full attention back to Dewey, he was staring at the floor now. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“She could’ve asked for help whenever she wanted. She was here _all_ the time. But she just kept going along with it. We trusted her. She hurt Webby!”

“Webby’s forgiven her.”

Dewey huffed, folding his arms. “Yeah, I know, everyone loves Lena. I get it.”

Della frowned. Dewey wasn’t usually the sullen one. “Why does this bother you so much? Scrooge told me what happened during the Shadow War. It sounds like she saved you and Webby.” The boy folded his arms tighter. “Dewey, come on. Talk to me.”

“I…” He was clearly struggling with his words, eyes darting this way and that. “Lena was cool, but Webby just forgot everything else existed when she was around. She followed Lena around like a puppy. And Webby was — is — my friend. We did everything together. She helped me look for stuff about you. When Lena, ya know, died or whatever happened, Webby started hanging out with me more. I knew she was trying to bring Lena back, we all did. But we never thought she actually _would_. And now she’s living here, and Webby is pretty much attached to her, and when Violet comes over it’s like the rest of the world stops existing. I’m _glad_ Lena doesn’t come on adventures. That feels like the only time I can see my friend again.

“And _you_… I don’t get it, why is she so important to you?”

“Dewey…” Della sighed. “I care about all of you. What’s wrong with that?”

“You said no to hanging out with _us_ tonight because you had plans with Lena.”

“It’s almost nine. We’d get a good hour of laser tag at best. Why do that tonight when we can leave early tomorrow and spend all night there? And bring Donald with us, have you ever seen him try to play laser tag? It’s pretty hilarious.” She paused, hoping for a smile. Nothing. “I wasn’t trying to ditch you. I wouldn’t do that. I’d spend every single second of the day with you if I could. But you might get a little creeped out if I leaned over your bed staring at you.”

“Well, yeah…” It would be impressive to see that considering he was on the second bunk, though. “I just… don’t get it.”

“You’re jealous of her.” Dewey hunched up slightly. Della sighed. “Lena has… a lot of things she needs to talk about. And it’s not easy for her to tell just anyone about certain things. Space and the Shadow Realm just happen to have a lot in common. She needs someone who understands.” She raised her hands, cupping Dewey’s face. “_You_ are my son, and I love you. Nothing is ever going to change that. Remember when you asked if I have a favorite?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t. I love you, and I love your brothers. How could I ever choose between any of you? My helping Lena and being an open ear doesn’t take away from that. Laser tag sounds like a great idea. We should bring Scrooge too, it’d be awesome. Tonight just wasn’t the night for it. But it’ll happen. And it’ll be a great night.”

Dewey frowned, fiddling with his hands. “Okay,” he said quietly. “I should apologize, huh?”

“Yes, but only if you mean it. Don’t apologize just to make yourself feel better or because you’re being forced to.” They heard the front door open and close; Della pressed a kiss to Dewey’s forehead before standing and going out to the foyer. Dewey followed hesitantly.

Lena and Webby were walking across the foyer. The former was dripping wet. “Uh…” Della watched them with a frown. “Are you—”

“I’m fine,” Lena snapped in a surprisingly sharp voice. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Do you wanna talk after—”

“No. I’d hate to take time away from you and your _real_ family.” She started up the stairs without so much as a glance in their direction. Webby, however, stopped to glare at Dewey.

“I know, I know. I’m a jerk.”

“Not quite the word I was thinking, but it’ll do, I guess.”

“I’m sorry—”

“How could you say something like that? What is _wrong_ with you? Are you going to get mad that she breathes the same _air_ as you?”

“Hey, lay off,” Dewey snapped, annoyance rising again. “I’ll apologize to her.”

“You don’t _get it_, Dewey! She already thinks everyone is just waiting for an excuse to kick her out. She doesn’t need you feeding into that because you’re _jealous_!”

“It’s not like that—”

“Well it is to her! It doesn’t matter what you _meant_, or if you didn’t _mean_ to hurt her, you _did_! I know she acts all cool and stuff, but she has feelings!”

Webby turned in a huff, storming to the stairs. “Hey, why was she wet?” Della asked.

“She jumped in the ocean.”

“...Okay.”

Webby went upstairs, after shooting one last glare at Dewey. Dewey sighed, looking at Della. “Sorry kiddo, that’s one you have to deal with on your own.”

* * *

Dewey waited a few hours before slipping into the library and climbing the ladder slowly, just poking his head up. Webby was on the top bunk, scribbling in a journal; Lena was on the bottom, her head under her pillow.

“Um…”

Webby looked up, surprised, then scowled. “No.”

“Can I just—”

“No.”

Lena hadn’t twitched. “Is she…?”

“Sound canceling headphones.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, they really work. What do you want?”

“To apologize.”

“She’s not interested.”

Dewey sighed, resting his arms on the edge of the hatch. “I know what I said was stupid—”

“It wasn’t stupid, Dewey, it was _mean_. Do you know how hard she is on herself? She’s always questioning if she’s good enough or if she’s doing enough, if she’s turning into Magica, and then you had to go and say _that_?”

“I didn’t say she was turning into Magica!”

“No, you said she’s not part of this family. That’s worse. She’s trying so _hard_. But you’re being a jerk because, what? Your mother didn’t want to spend one night with you?”

“Fine, I get it!” Dewey didn’t mean to yell. Those sound-canceling headphones were worth whatever Della had spent on them. “I’m terrible, is that what you want to hear?”

“No, I want you to understand why I’m mad at you!” Webby slammed her journal shut. “You’ve _always_ had someone who loved and cared about you, even if it wasn’t always your mother. Why doesn’t Lena deserve the same?”

Dewey’s eyes dropped to the floor, then moved back to look at Lena. “Can she really not hear this?”

“They’re _really_ good headphones.”

Dewey sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Webby looked him up and down. “I know you are,” she said finally. “But I don’t speak for Lena. You can find a way to make it up to her.”

That was going to be the hard part. Dewey ducked his head, muttering, “Yeah,” before dropping back to the library.

* * *

“Laser tag!” Della announced, bouncing into the dining room, where everyone was in various stages of eating breakfast. The boys were sitting close to Scrooge. Lena had put herself nearly at the other end of the table. Webby had chosen to sit with her. “There’s this place downtown that has roller skating _and_ a laser tag area. I thought we’d go early, hang out, get some lunch, and we can do laser tag after! Uncle Scrooge, you wanna come?”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to pass,” Scrooge said dryly, hiding behind his newspaper. Della sighed dramatically.

“Donald said no, too. You guys are no fun. What about you, Mrs. B?” she asked the housemaid as she walked in with tea.

“I believe my prior occupation and skills would give me an unfair advantage. Webby, Lena, why are you sitting so far down the table?”

Lena kept her eyes on her bowl of cereal, not answering. Webby gave her grandmother a look and shook her head. “Guess it’s just me and you guys, then,” Della said, shrugging. “Boys versus girls? We can totally take them, right?”

“Oh, yeah, that sounds thrilling,” Lena said sarcastically, abandoning her cereal and starting off toward the dining room’s main door. “Hard pass. Don’t want to get in the way of _real family_ time.”

“What?” Scrooge looked up from his paper, watching the girl. “What’re you on about, lass?”

“Nothing.” She walked out without another word. Huey and Louie looked at Dewey, who hunched up.

“What am I supposed to do? She won’t talk to me.”

“What is going on?” Scrooge interjected, looking between his grand-nephews and niece. Webby hurried out of the room a well when no one was looking. Della sighed.

“Boys, why don’t you go get ready? I dunno about laser tag, but we’ll do something today.”

They boys slid out of their seats, Dewey keeping his head down as they left. Della collapsed into Louie’s vacated seat, sighing. “Do you remember how you always liked Donald more than me?”

“What?” Scrooge scoffed. “I did _not_ play favorites between you two.”

“Yeah you did! You were always asking me why I was so reckless and why I didn’t stop and think _like Donald_—”

“And you think I didn’t do the same with him?” The older man frowned. “Lass, I was trying to make you both work harder. I wanted you to stop being so thick — which clearly didn’t work — and I wanted him to expand his horizons a bit. What does that have to do with anything?”

Della curled a finger around a lock of hair, sighing. “Dewey thinks I care more about Lena than I do him, Huey, or Louie.” Scrooge blinked a few times. He hadn’t expected that. “And she heard him say that she’s not a _real_ member of the family.”

“Ah, curse me kilts.” Scrooge sighed, shaking his head. “And she’s clearly not taking that well.”

“I thought I was doing a good job giving them all attention. Especially since Lena and I mostly hang out at three in the morning when everyone else is sleeping. I didn’t think it was a big deal. But Dewey thinks it is. Did I do something wrong?”

“I don’t think it’s you, Della,” Scrooge said gently. “Dewey’s always worried about being lost between his brothers and not standing out enough. He’s been getting better about it, but I’m not surprised he’s gotten a little… wound up again.”

“So what am I supposed to do? I can’t make any more time in the day.” Della sighed, kicking at the table. “Why am I so bad at this?”

“This one isn’t your fault,” Scrooge said. “They’re both sensitive, even if neither of them want to admit it. And Lena has an extra layer of no one ever caring about her on top of it. It’s not surprising she would take the first sign of discourse and run with it.”

“So basically there’s nothing I can do for either of them because it’s something they need to work on between themselves?” Scrooge nodded. “This sucks.”

“Welcome to parenthood, lassie.”

* * *

Dewey stood outside the library, staring at the door. He wanted to knock, to talk to Lena, to do _something_. But part of him was scared. And part of him still didn’t see what he had done wrong. Logically he knew he had hurt Lena’s feelings, but nothing he had said _felt_ wrong.

_Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it_.

And Lena would absolutely call him out if she thought he was lying.

The door opened while Dewey was lost in thought; there was no time to move before Lena, who had her eyes on her phone and a pair of earbuds in, walked right into him.

“Oof!”

“Ow!”

They both stumbled back a couple steps; Lena recovered first, glaring at Dewey. “What, am I taking up too much hall space now, too?”

“What? No, I was just—”

“Whatever.” Lena hiked her bag up onto her shoulder, pushing passed Dewey. “I’m leaving, don’t worry.”

“What?!” Dewey scrambled after her. “Wait, Lena, please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it—”

“Yes, you did,” Lena replied flatly.

“Okay, maybe I did a little but that’s not like — how I feel all the time—”

“Sure.” The teen scoffed.

“It’s not! I know what I said was terrible and I’m sorry, I’m really, really, really sorry. I swear I didn’t mean what I said about you not being family.”

“If you didn’t mean it, you wouldn’t have said it.”

They were at the staircase now, heading down into the foyer. Della poked her head out of the den, frowning when she saw them.

“But I didn’t — I was angry—”

“Yeah, and do you think people are honest when they’re being _nice_?” Lena whirled on her heel to glare at him. “Do you really think I’m that stupid? No one is ever honest when they’re being nice, it just means they _want_ something.”

Dewey just stared, slack-jawed, as Lena turned away again. Della took a deep breath and strode across the foyer, gently grabbing Lena’s shoulder before she could get too far. “Hey.” Her voice was gentle as she reached her other hand out to pull Dewey closer. “I know you’re upset, kid, and I get it, and I also know you don’t mean that.”

“Whatever. Don’t you—”

“Stop saying I have _real_ family to hang out with,” Della interrupted firmly. “_You_ are a part of this family too, as far as I’m concerned. And Dewey, I get it. I used to be jealous of Donald a lot—”

“_Why_?” Dewey asked incredulously..

“It’s complicated. The _point_ is that you talk when you feel that way. Donald and I used to argue a lot over which one of us was Uncle Scrooge’s favorite, and okay, maybe yelling at each other wasn’t the _best_ way to get things out, but at least we talked about it. So no more avoiding.” She took Lena’s hand and tugged her to turn around. “No more walking out. Talk to each other.”

Lena crossed her arms, glaring at Della. “I’m not—”

“If you say you’re not my kid one more time, I’m going to make a cake and force you to eat it.” Lena and Dewey both grimaced. “See, there’s something for you guys to bond over. Just _talk_ to each other.”

She pushed them both toward the den. They looked at her, then each other, then finally gave in, going to the den. Della closed the doors behind them and sat on the floor to make sure no one got in. And to find phone games.

Dewey looked at the closed door, then at Lena. “I’m—”

“I get it, you’re _sorry_. Let’s just hug and make up so Della will let us out of here.”

“I don’t want to just lie,” Dewey insisted. “I know you’re mad at me, and you have every right to be. I was a jerk. And I’m not just sorry because I got caught. I’m sorry I said it at all. You didn’t deserve it.”

“But you still meant it.”

He couldn’t argue with that. “Yeah, I did, a little. Not because of you or anything you did.” He rubbed the back of his head. “But it was wrong. And I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Lena’s expression softened just slightly. “I’m not here to steal your mom or anything. Honestly, you can keep her, she’s a pain.” Dewey coughed, trying to cover a laugh. “I just want a place to live.”

“I know. And I’m sorry I made you feel like this wasn’t the place for you. And… you can have Mom, too. She’s a lot of Mom. Like, too much even for three of us.”

Lena’s beak twitched slightly as she tried not to smile. “That’s true. She’s a bit overbearing.”

“And hard to keep up with sometimes.”

“And loud—”

“Hey!” Della swung the door open. “You’re supposed to be bonding, not insulting me!”

“Why can’t we do both?”

Della stormed into the room, grabbing Dewey, then Lena, and tucking them both under her arms in a half chokehold half hug. “Agh! Get _off,_ crazy lady!” Lena complained as Dewey and Della laughed. She could protest all she wanted, but Dewey saw the smile on her face when she thought no one was looking.

“All right! Laser tag is a-go!”

Della hurried off to get the others. Lena rolled her eyes, hooking her bag more securely over her shoulder. “So… does this mean you’re not going to move out?” he asked. Lena rose an eyebrow.

“What? I was never moving out.”

Dewey gaped for a moment. “But you said — you said you were leaving—”

“Yeah, I was going to the _beach_. Did you _really_ think I was just going to up and move out because you’re a jerk?”

The blue-clad boy just stared at her for a long moment before sighing and ducking his head. “Yeah I guess it’s pretty stupid when you say it like _that_…”

Lena chuckled, ruffling Dewey’s hair as she walked by him. He grumbled in return, but couldn’t find it in himself to truly be upset.


End file.
